The Rabbit Ascending
by Baron Zed
Summary: Sequel to The Vulpine Rabbit. Sasuke's training trip is over and Team Kakashi (Naruto, Hinata, Sasuke) is reunited. Their job? Take care of Akatsuki. Shippuden timeframe. Fem!Naruto as transmigrant of Kaguya (multiple bloodlines).
1. Chapter 1: Reunion

Naruto and its characters were created by Masashi Kishimoto. This is fan fiction.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** This story is a direct sequel to my other story The Vulpine Rabbit and begins where Shippuden does. If this story interests you, really should read The Vulpine Rabbit first.

This story features fem!Naruto, confident!Hinata, and non-jerk(mostly)!Sasuke as Team Seven. Naruto is the transmigrant of Kaguya instead of Asura. Due to an accident involving Zetsu directly after the Mizuki incident, Naruto looks like Kaguya with whisker marks and non-mutilated eyebrows. She also has the Byakugan, Rinne-Sharingan, and Shikotsumyaku bloodlines, but the only one she's mastered is the Byakugan. Naruto, Hinata, and Sasuke have apprenticed under Tsunade, Anko, and Jiraiya, respectively, in order to make themselves into a new version of the Sannin.

The title does not imply actual godhood for Naruto (although she will be quite powerful by the time this is over).

* * *

Sixteen-year-old Uzumaki Naruto gave a pleased sigh as she tossed the last of the Hokage's paperwork into a pile. A not-insignificant portion of her time as the Hokage's apprentice involved acting as her administrative assistant. She had complained about it at first, but Shizune, the Hokage's former apprentice, had pointed out that it was good training for being Hokage herself and she had let it go. She absently formed several Shadow Clones. Most of them took piles to the various shinobi departments and one took the return-to-sender pile to the Hokage's _actual_ secretary. She smiled as she took two piles herself: one two drop on the Hokage's desk and one to take up to the roof of the Hokage Tower.

The Hokage, Senju Tsunade, was asleep at her desk. Naruto shook her head. She would wake her when she came down again. On paper, the Hokage was very busy as the leader of the village and the head of the shinobi hospital. In actual practice, her former and current apprentices and Shizune's apprentice, Haruno Sakaura—Tsunade's unofficial second apprentice, ran the hospital, and Shizune and Naruto over a lot of the burden of being Hokage. She placed the pile of papers on her master's desk and went to the staircase that led up.

At the top of the tower she used a weak Fire Release Technique to perform her favorite ritual of the day, the burning of the paperwork that did not even merit being returned to sender. She always burned the pile in view of the village in order to discourage frivolous requests being sent to the Hokage. There had been protests at first, but Tsunade had put her foot down. The ritual had helped and paperwork had gone down. Secretly, Naruto hoped that the burn pile never went away completely. For the first year of her apprenticeship, Shizune or the Hokage had checked the sorting of the two reject piles, but for the last two years, they had not bothered.

She stood overlooking the village and looked down at her clothes. She had changed her outfit a few weeks ago. Whereas before she had worn dark colors as was customary for Konoha shinobi, her new clothes were pale without being bright. The style was similar to her the outfit she had picked out with Hinata before their second C-rank mission. It emphasized her figure without being slutty. Her bust was now moderate sized and she had very nice hips, if she did say so herself. Occasionally, she would have brief bouts of jealousy over Hinata's figure, but she was glad that she did not have to cart around Tsunade-sized breasts. She wore brown pants, an orange long-sleeved shirt, and a green vest. She had brown holsters on her thighs that matched her pants. They were empty except for the storage seals she had inked onto the insides. She still wore her Leaf Badge as a belt, but the sash that held it was the same orange as her shirt. Her hair was tied into a loose ponytail by a green ribbon that matched her shirt.

She had two reasons for changing her shinobi outfit. First, she preferred to be different. Wearing similar clothes to everyone else had bugged her, but she had gone along with it because her unusual appearance caused her to stand out enough. Second, the dark clothing had contrasted too much with her albino-like coloring. While she had initially liked the contrast, over time she had tired of it. The only color she naturally had since her Shinobi Academy graduation fiasco was the light brown of her rabbit-ear-like horns, the pale blue of her eyes, and the pink of her lips. She thought that the new color scheme made her look better and it did not really hurt her stealth, since she usually ended up using her Disguise Technique when she wanted to hide.

Sakura and Ino had actually convinced her to start wearing makeup. Most of her makeup was understated—just to add a small amount of color to her cheeks and around her eyes. However, they did talk her into wearing Sharingan-red lipstick. It was the one highly-contrasting feature she currently wore, but she had to admit that she rocked it—especially when she opened her third eye.

It still sometimes surprised her that she had become good friends with Sakura, and by extension Ino, after the antagonism of their Academy days, but the bit of advice that she had dropped during the Chuunin Exams seemed to have gotten to her. It also helped that she was Sakura's senpai as the apprentice of her master's former master.

She headed downstairs to wake up Tsunade. She was mildly surprised to find Sasuke and Jiraiya there. Both of them looked much the same as she had seen them last. Sasuke had grown taller and more muscular—although he was still slender—in the three years since he had left on the trip. Although he had been back for a few weeks eight times, they had never had the time to do more than say "hi" in passing and exchange a few ideas on Rinne-Sharingan techniques.

"Emo-chan! Ero-sennin!" she exclaimed.

"Bunny-chan," Sasuke replied with a smirk.

"Brat! Don't call me that!" Jiraiya said.

"You're late, Ero-sennin," she said, ignoring his complaint. "You were due back here six months ago to give me more fuuinjutsu lessons."

"Well, you know. . . things happened," he said.

"Let me guess," she said to Sasuke. "He got caught up doing his _research_."

Sasuke grunted in agreement.

"Bad Ero-sennin!" she exclaimed.

"Brat," Jiraiya said, "my research is important for the literary future of the Elemental Nations!"

"Whatever," she replied.

"I've sent for Hinata-chan and Kakashi-san," said Tsunade. "Now that Sasuke's training trip is officially over, it's time to decide what to do next."

"Well then," said Jiraiya. "I'm out of here. See you around, Hime, Brats."

He was gone before anyone could complain.

Naruto scowled. "He still owes me fuuinjutsu lessons!"

Naruto's fuuinjutsu skills were solidly in the intermediate range, other than medical seals. Despite having Uzumaki blood, Tsunade's fuuinjutsu knowledge was fairly specialized due to lack of interest in other aspects of sealing. She had passed on most of her sealing knowledge to Naruto once she had been taught the basics by Jiraiya. The proof of that was the Yin Seal on her forehead above where her third eye opened. Naruto felt that she was missing a few key concepts that would enable her to really understand fuuinjutsu and start creating her own seals in areas outside of medicine.

Before Naruto could really build up steam in complaining about her godfather's habits, Hinata entered the room.

"Hi, Hinata-chan!" Naruto greeted her.

Sasuke grunted in acknowledgement.

While they waited for Kakashi, they made inconsequential small talk. What Naruto really wanted to do was brag about her skills and find out how her old teammates had improved, but they had agreed at the beginning of the apprenticeship period that they would not talk about their new skills until they had a chance to show off in a spar, so she held her tongue. She still sparred regularly against Hinata, since they had both kept mainly in the village, but she was sure that the Hyuuga was keeping some surprises in reserve, just like she was. The only exception to this rule was that Sasuke and Naruto exchanged any information they had on their doujutsu whenever they saw each other.

When Kakashi finally appeared, forty minutes later, Naruto was about ready to start bouncing off the walls. While she was much more restrained after training with Tsunade, she still had bouts of impatience.

"So nice of you to join us, Kakashi-san," Tsunade snarled at her jounin.

"I'm glad to be here and see my _cute little genin_ again," Kakashi said with an eye smile. Naruto was certain he was deliberately ignoring the Hokage's sarcasm.

"We're hardly little and we haven't been genin for three years," she said, irritated at her always-late jounin sensei.

"You'll always be my cute little genin to me," he said with another eye smile.

Tsunade huffed. "I'm reforming Team Kakashi with you four. I'd like to be able to have you available to take care of Akatsuki and similar dangers, but I need to evaluate the three of you to see if you're up to it. Kakashi, set up an evaluation exercise for tomorrow. If you're late I'll delay the next Icha Icha release from Konoha for the number of days that you are minutes late. I don't have time to deal with your nonsense. Jiraiya, Anko, and I will also be there to watch you."

"Nine o'clock at the usual place," Kakashi said. He disappeared with a Flicker Technique.

Tsunade arched an eyebrow.

Naruto sighed. "Training Ground Seven."

* * *

Naruto showed up at Training Ground Seven, five minutes before nine o'clock. She had already seeded the training ground with Shadow Clones while she ate breakfast and got ready. She was idly curious to know if Tsunade's threat would make her old sensei show up on time. Hinata, Sasuke, and Anko were already there. Within a few minutes, Tsunade showed up. Jiraiya appeared right after the Hokage.

As Naruto was about to bug her godfather about continuing her fuuinjutsu lessons, Kakashi showed up precisely on time with a Flicker. He had in his hand two familiar bells which he tied to his belt.

"You really think you can keep those bells from the Neo-sannin?" Naruto asked.

Kakashi eye smiled and said, "The Neo-sannin, is it? Maybe I should put a time limit on this exercise?"

Naruto shrugged her shoulders. Sasuke grunted. Hinata smiled pleasantly.

"So nonchalant?" he asked. "Okay then. You have 15 minutes to get the bells."

"Fine," Naruto said with a grin. This exercise was as good as won.

"And. . ." Kakashi drawled with an eye smile, "to make it about skill and not power: no upper tier doujutsu—vanilla Sharingan and Byakugan only, no Kyuubi, and no Rabbit Goddess techniques."

All three chuunin nodded. With the Heavenly Attraction Technique that the Rinne-Sharingan and Tenseigan could do, it would be too easy.

"I see that you're only handicapping us," Sasuke said smugly.

Kakashi moved his Leaf Badge to reveal his Sharingan which morphed into a three-bladed shuriken with sickle-like extensions on the blades. "Oh really?" he said, equally smugly.

"Mangekyou!" Sasuke hissed. "How?"

"It's something I don't like to talk about," Kakashi said. "You'll have to get me really drunk before I'll tell the story."

"Why haven't we seen this before, Sensei?" Hinata asked.

"It used to take too much out of me to use," he replied. "Even after three years of training to not get left behind by you three, I can only safely use it three times a day."

"What techniques can you do with that eye?" Hinata asked.

"I'll tell you later," he said. "You guys ready?"

"Let's do this!" exclaimed Naruto

Sasuke grunted.

"Ready, Sensei," said Hinata.

"Go!" Kakashi said.

Naruto felt one of her clones pull her away with a Replacement Technique. She ended up in a small clearing some distance away with her two teammates.

"I've got some distractions all lined up," she told her teammates.

They rolled their eyes as she started to cackle evilly.

She looked around and saw her clones already in their Disguises. "Just tap out a clone that you want to replace and use a Disguise to take on its role," she said.

"Team Gai?" Hinata asked Sasuke.

"Sounds good," Sasuke said with a nod. "I assume you want your cousin?"

Hinata nodded.

"I'll take Tenten-san then," Sasuke said. "You going to join us, Bunny-chan?"

"Why not?" Naruto said. "I'll take Bushy Brows Junior."

They each took the place of one of the clones. Each team of clones spread out around the clearing where Kakashi and the observers were waiting.

Suddenly a mob of cats ran through the clearing with Tora in the lead. Konohamaru and his pals were running after them with their sensei chasing after them. Tora swerved toward Kakashi, but he leaped out of the way, only to almost get clobbered by Konohamaru.

"Really?" Kakashi called out. "This trick again, Naru-chan? I expected better from you."

Three horse-sized nine-tailed golden foxes surrounded him and then leaped at him. He used Replacement to get out of their way to find another three waiting for him. He Replaced himself again. In all, nine miniature Kyuubis stalked him.

 _That's not how I look, Stepmother_ , the real Kyuubi complained.

 _If I used the real you, we'd have this place covered with ANBU before we could blink_ , she responded. _Relax, I'm just having fun._

The Kyuubi sent her a mental eye roll.

The next group to attack was Zabuza, Haku, and the Demon Brothers.

They were followed by a younger version of the Sannin.

Naruto signaled her teammates that it was their turn. The clone acting as Gai leaped into the clearing followed by the Disguised chuunin.

"Kakashi!" the Gai-clone yelled. "I challenge you to a contest of skills. I will show that my Youthfulness is more powerful than your cool, hip ways!"

"Gai-sensei," Naruto-Disguised-as-Lee yelled. "If you cannot win, I will run backwards around Konoha on my hands five dozen times!"

"Lee-kun!" the Gai-clone exclaimed. "If you cannot do that I will carry you and your teammates up and down the Hokage Monument 75 times using only my teeth!"

"Hey, leave us out of this!" Sasuke-Disguised-as-Tenten yelled.

"Tenten-chan!" Naruto exclaimed. "Where are your Flames of Youth!? Tenten-chan! Neji-kun! Join me in lending Gai-sensei the strength of our Flames so that he can overcome his Eternal Rival!"

Naruto posed in Standard Nice Guy Pose Number One with a broad smile complete with teeth sparkle and a thumbs up.

"Lee-kun!" the clone called.

"Gai-sensei!" Naruto responded.

"Lee-kun!"

"Gai-sensei!"

The clone rushed toward Naruto and they enveloped each other in a manly hug, each of them shedding tears of joy. She cast a genjutsu of the sun setting over the Hokage Monument and the sound of waves crashing in the background. The way those two acted, she always thought that their man hugs needed something extra to emphasize their "Youth."

Kakashi was staring at her and her clone in thinly disguised disgust and horror. Unfortunately, so were Hinata and Sasuke in their Disguises. Naruto did not know whether to be pleased or annoyed with the response. She made hand signs behind the clone's back so that only Hinata with her Byakugan and her own clones could see them.

Hinata-Disguised-as-Neji started and began to back away, clutching Sasuke's arm. Their path took them toward Kakashi. Kakashi started at the movement and watched them warily.

The last five minutes of the test consisted of Kakashi dodging the clones and the chuunin using Replacement. The alarm rang, signaling the end of the test.

They met in front of the posts that Kakashi had threatened to tie them to during the Bell Test. Their three masters were waiting and watching.

Kakashi rattled the bells. "It looks like you failed."

"We would have gotten you eventually, Kakashi-sensei," Sasuke growled. "You would have made a mistake or run out of chakra."

"You don't always have the luxury of time, Sasuke-kun," Kakashi pointed out.

"Who says we failed?" Naruto said smugly. The bells at Kakashi's waist disappeared in puffs of smoke. One of Naruto's clones appeared and then tossed her and her teammates each a bell. Naruto was pretty proud of her Replacement skills. To pull that off without Kakashi noticing took fabulous chakra control—she did not know of any other shinobi that could do it.

"How did you pull that off?" Jiraiya asked. "Your clone would already have to be Disguised as a bell when she did the Replacement. Bells don't have eyes!"

"I've discovered that my clones and I can communicate if we extend our chakra while we are touching," Naruto explained. "I simply had another clone using the Byakugan hold the bell-clone in order to show her where to go."

"Dare I ask when you had the swap done?" Kakashi asked.

"Not long after you showed up," Naruto said smugly.

Kakashi looked irritated for the first time since she had met him. He sighed and composed himself. "How very shinobi of you, Naruto-chan. Well done."

"As entertaining as this was," Tsunade said, "it wasn't what I was looking for. I want you to do individual spars, so that I can see your combat skills."

"I want to fight Bunny-chan," Sasuke said.

"Think you can handle me, Emo-chan?" she said with a smirk.

He grunted dismissively.

"Very well," Tsunade said. "Sasuke-kun against Naruto-chan and Hinata-chan against Kakashi-san. I want to see a wide range of your combat skills."

As Naruto stood across from Sasuke, she said, "Same rules as what Kakashi-sensei said?"

Sasuke grunted in agreement and added, "How about we up the ante?"

"Oh?" Naruto inquired. "How?"

"No doujutsu at all," Sasuke replied. "I want to see if you've gained any actual skill, Dead Last."

It had been years since Sasuke had called her that and she knew he was just trying to rile her up, but she had to admit that it was working—a little. Plus, she _did_ want to show him and everyone else that she was more than just the bloodline abilities that she had inherited from Kaguya. Technically, what he was proposing still left her the Shikotsumyaku, but it was not her preferred close-range technique and she had only figured out a few ways to use it.

"You're on!" She turned to Tsunade and said, "Start us off, Baa-shishou?"

Tsunade got the put-upon expression that she got whenever Naruto called her any form of "granny," but since she did not have anything on-hand to throw, she only said, "On my mark. . . go!"

Naruto seallessly created 12 Shadow Clones which surrounded Sasuke in a circle about five meters in radius. Sasuke was content to let her make the first move.

"You aren't going to do a freaky collaboration move that will destroy the forest, are you?" he taunted.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" she taunted back.

She left him in anticipation for another 15 seconds before whipping out a rubber ball from one of her holster seals. Each of her clones did the same. She hurled it at him and clapped her hands together to activate the Gale Palm Technique and accelerate it. She formed a Tiger seal and called out, "Missile Shadow Clone Technique!" Her clones all did the same. Walls of rubber balls converged rapidly on Sasuke. Officially this was the Shuriken Shadow Clone Technique, but she felt silly calling it that when she was not throwing a shuriken and even sillier calling it Rubber Ball Shadow Clone Technique. This was one of her best new offensive techniques that she had learned from Asuma. She had to admit that it suited her, due to its similarity to what had been and still was her signature technique. She had practiced it in secret until she could get it down from the original eight hand seals to one.

The balls went flying everywhere once they reached Sasuke's location. A contingency clone Replaced her in order to prevent her from becoming a mass of bruises.

Once the mass of cloned balls dissipated, leaving only one behind, Sasuke called out from the edge of the clearing, "What was that!? Who was idiot enough to teach you that technique?" A log with chunks of bark missing was lying where Sasuke had been standing.

"That was a pretty impressive Replacement, Emo-chan!" she said.

"I practiced it until I could do it seallessly, since I knew I would be sparring with you and you don't know the meaning of the word 'overkill,' Bunny-chan!" he accused.

"Sure I do," she said with a foxy grin. "'Overkill' is a word used by lesser shinobi when they get jealous of awesome shinobi like me!"

At that point, a running long-range ninjutsu and missile engagement began. The two of them were pretty evenly matched at the long-distance range. Sasuke knew a wider range of offensive ninjutsu, as would be expected of the Toad Sage's apprentice, but Naruto knew a decent amount and had abused Shadow Clones to make sure she had mastered the ones she knew.

"Want to see how you do up close?" Sasuke called.

"Getting low on chakra, Emo-chan?" she taunted.

"Not yet," Sasuke admitted, "but I know it's impossible for _anyone_ to outlast _you_ in a ninjutsu stalemate, no matter how careful they are in spending chakra."

"Ah," she said. "You're making me blush, Emo-chan." She laughed. "I'm up for it."

They jogged toward each other, stopping a meter apart. Naruto seallessly formed Chakra Scalpels and took a stance reminiscent of the Gentle Fist.

"I thought you weren't going to learn the Gentle Fist?" Sasuke commented.

"I haven't," Naruto replied. "Not really. I have used the Sharingan in fights with Hinata-chan enough that I've picked up the physical part of it and I've found that its stances and some of the movements work well with Chakra Scalpels, which are my current favorite of my close-up techniques. I could easily reverse engineer the chakra component of the Gentle Fist if I wanted to, but I don't want to tick off Hinata-chan's family nor do I need it. Between Chakra Scalpels, the Rasengan, Shikotsumyaku, and Baa-shishou's strength-based taijutsu style, I have plenty of close-range options. I prefer Chakra Scalpels because they give me the most flexibility. They also have good synergy with the Byakugan."

"But you aren't using the Byakugan," Sasuke commented smugly.

"I'm the apprentice of the most accomplished medic currently alive, Emo-chan," she said, rolling her eyes. "I don't need the Byakugan to be able to take you apart piece by piece."

The raw skill advantage that Sasuke had previously had in taijutsu had been closed by Naruto's years of fighting with the Sharingan active. Sasuke still had more experience and better taijutsu instincts, but this was offset by the fact that Naruto had contingency clones rescue her whenever she got into too tight a spot. He had gotten her a few times, but she simply swarmed him with clones while she healed herself.

"I admit that you're still better than me in straight-up taijutsu," she said after the latest skirmish ended with her getting a nasty bruise on her shoulder. She could wait for it to heal with her natural regeneration, but Sasuke was good enough that she needed to be in peak condition, so she used the Mystic Palm on it. Sasuke was panting with the effort of having to avoid her Chakra Scalpels for so long. "But when are we ever going to be in a straight-up taijutsu fight outside of silly tournaments?"

"I miss the days when I could taunt you into doing something stupid," Sasuke said with a sigh. "Your freakish physical endurance, chakra reserves, and healing make you impossible if someone doesn't finish you off all at once."

"It's great to be me!" Naruto said with a cheeky grin.

Sasuke rolled his eyes. "One final go?" he asked.

"Let's do it!" she exclaimed.

Sasuke flashed through 11 hand seals ending on Monkey. Lightning chakra covered his arm and continuous chirping filled the air. "Kakashi-sensei taught me this in case I needed to face Gaara in the Exams," he commented. "It's his signature move."

Naruto formed a Rasengan in her hand. Chakra Scalpels would not be able to deflect the technique that Sasuke was using. Sasuke charged toward her. Surprisingly, the charge had no subtlety to it. Naruto easily blocked the technique with her Rasengan and hammered him with a kick to the ribs.

"Okay," Kakashi said. "I'm stopping this match. It's starting to get out of hand."

Naruto crouched down and started to heal Sasuke's bruised ribs.

"Why did you use the Thousand Birds Technique, Sasuke-kun?" Kakashi asked. "I told you to never use it on a comrade."

"I knew that Naruto-chan could handle it if it hit her," Sasuke said. "I didn't aim for anything vital."

"And the tunnel effect using it without the Sharingan?" he asked.

"Uh, I forgot?" Sasuke said, embarrassed.

Naruto cracked up laughing.

"I'm proud of both of you," Kakashi said. "That was an impressive spar until Sasuke-kun's questionable decision to use the Thousand Birds Technique."

"Ero-sensei doesn't know any close-range offensive techniques except Rasengan and he won't teach it to me," he complained.

"It's Naruto's inheritance," Jiraiya said. "It's up to her to teach it to you, if she wants."

Sasuke tried to use puppy dog eyes on her. She almost agreed on the spot due to the ridiculousness of the broody Uchiha with pleading eyes.

She laughed and said, "Let me think about it—okay, Emo-chan? I'm trying to get away from making all my decisions spur of the moment when I don't have to."

Sasuke pouted in response, which almost had her on rolling on the floor again. "When did you get so responsible, Dead Last?"

"When Baa-shishou started making me handle her paperwork," she said with a mock glare at her master.

"You're the one that wants to be Hokage," Tsunade said in response. "I'm just making sure you won't be incompetent if it somehow happens."

"I feel the love, Baachan," Naruto said.

Tsunade snorted in amusement.

Hinata and Kakashi's match was fast-paced and furious. Kakashi spent much of it fleeing from Hinata using Replacement and trying to position himself for ninjutsu barrages. Kakashi was an expert at close-range fighting, but Hinata's Gentle Fist peppered with Snake Style and her own unique moves was very tricky. Kakashi was used to high-speed battles with Gai, but Hinata's flexibility and agility were quite different than the Strong Fist's straightforward moves. Hinata tried to box him in with precision kunai strikes, but Kakashi was too tricky to be caught.

"Hinata-chan has him on the run by herself, almost as much as all three of together did," Sasuke said, speaking loudly to be heard over Anko alternately cheering for and threatening her apprentice.

"Fighting Hinata-chan is no joke," Naruto said. "The only reason I can win a fight with her is that the Byakugan can't tell the difference between me and my Shadow Clones. Honestly, Kakashi-sensei will probably win, but only because he specified no Tenseigan."

Sasuke arched an eyebrow.

"If you think she's fast now, you haven't seen anything yet. When she uses her glowy mode. . ." Naruto shuddered, then she smirked. "Plus she can fly."

"She can fly?" Sasuke said incredulously. The Third Tsuchikage was the only shinobi that most people knew of that could.

"She figured it out using her gravity powers," Naruto said. "I was able to do the same with my Deva Path after talking with her and observing her. I'll show you how to do it later. The only real drawback to flying besides chakra cost is that it limits you to using Deva Path abilities. Hinata-chan, of course, doesn't have that drawback since all of her Tenseigan abilities are connected."

"Does Hinata-chan use ninjutsu?" Sasuke asked after the fight had progressed.

"Yes," Naruto said, "but she prefers taijutsu or kunai techniques. She's not using any now because she knows that Kakashi-sensei is trying to drag the match out and she's trying to conserve chakra."

After another ten minutes, Kakashi succeeded in wearing Hinata out enough to trap her and force her to yield.

"I have to admit, I'm impressed with all three of you and your teachers," Tsunade said.

The three chuunin smirked—even Hinata. Anko cheered.

"You are all clearly jounin level, as far as fighting ability goes," Tsunade continued.

"Does that mean you're promoting us?" Naruto asked excitedly.

Tsunade shook her head. "Jounin also need to show leadership ability."

Naruto pouted. "You promoted Neji-san to jounin."

"He showed the necessary leadership qualities," Tsunade said, "and there were no political consequences to promoting him."

Naruto frowned. "Is this about the Kyuubi?" she asked.

Tsunade shook her head. "No, this is about my plans for your team. Promoting Neji-san freed up Gai-san to take separate missions and they could clearly handle it. I want the four of you together as Team Kakashi. If I promoted you, I couldn't justify keeping you all together as a team and I need a team like yours as an anti-Akatsuki taskforce. The Daimyo, the Council, and the Clan Heads would all complain if I tied up four jounin like that over hearsay and an isolated incident."

Naruto pouted again.

"Not even to take out a missing nin like Itachi?" Sasuke asked.

She shook her head. "Not unless he causes more problems. He's left Hi no Kuni alone for the most part since the Massacre. They would be afraid that he would cause more problems if we 'riled him up.'"

"Does that mean I won't be able to go after him?" Sasuke asked with a frown.

"It just means that I can't send you out after him as the stated mission at this point," the Hokage said. "If I think you're ready, I'll send you out under a pretext."

Sasuke nodded understanding.

"Obviously, Kakashi will be team leader," she said, "but I expect great things from all of you."

"You got it, Baachan!" Naruto exclaimed. She paused and then asked, "What now?"

"I'll send you out on some short A and B-ranks until we hear news of Akatsuki," the Hokage said. "Jiraiyi-kun, I want Akatsuki to be the primary focus of your network, okay?"

"You've got it, Hime," he responded with a thumbs up.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Yes, I did have Naruto create the fanon Sunset Genjutsu for kicks and giggles. No, this version is not unbreakable, but it is distrurbing-especially to Kakashi.

This chapter was extra long due to not having another decent place to stop. Most chapters will be my normal length.


	2. Chapter 2: Trouble in Suna

The three chuunin stayed behind at the training field in order to talk after the older shinobi left.

"So have you figured out any new Rinne-Sharingan techniques in the last six months, Emo-chan?" Naruto asked.

"No new techniques," Sasuke responded, "but I've gotten better at using the Asura Path."

Naruto grimaced. "That path is disturbing."

Sasuke shrugged. "It was a little disconcerting at first, but who can argue with rapidly shooting powerful missiles and beams without hand signs. Have you figured out anything new?"

"I can summon Hinata with the Animal Path," she replied.

"Really?" he said. "I wonder if I could summon you guys."

"I don't know," Naruto replied. "I noticed that I could feel a small residue of my chakra in her and concentrated on it while I was doing a summoning."

"So you think you could do it with me too?" her male teammate asked.

"I think so," she replied. "Other than that, I've only figured out flying with the Deva Path thanks to Hinata-chan."

Hinata smiled. "Flying is fun. I wish I could do it more, but it's somewhat chakra intensive."

"Is Ero-sennin still convinced that there are six paths?" Sasuke asked.

"Yeah," Naruto responded. "Unless there is something extra added by combining the Sharingan with the Rinnegan."

"You still don't know why you have nine tomoe compared to my six, do you?" he asked.

She shook her head. "The Kyuubi only knows what he heard about Kaguya. She had nine like me. If there's any difference we're going to have to figure it out on our own."

Besides the two Deva Path techniques that they had both started out knowing how to use instinctively. Naruto had figured out how to use the Animal Path to summon creatures and the Preta Path to absorb chakra from the techniques of opponents. Sasuke had figured out how to use the Human Path to absorb knowledge from a foe, killing them in the process, and how to alter his body with the Asura Path, including creating regenerating missiles from his body. Presumably, there was one more path.

"So what else did you learn?" Sasuke asked.

"You know," she said teasingly, "some ninjutus, some fuuinjutsu, lots of medical techniques." She smirked. "I think I already told you I learned Baachan's strength technique."

He rolled his eyes. "As if I needed another reason to stay out of arms reach of you."

All three of them came alert as they felt the chakra for as Body Flicker materialize a short distance from them. Moments later an ANBU appeared in the spot.

"Uchiha-san, Hyuuga-san, Uzumaki-san, Hokage-sama desires to see you in her office right away," he said.

Naruto exchanged a look with her teammates and said, "We'll be right there."

* * *

"Thanks for coming promptly," said Tsunade. She glared at Kakashi.

He eye smiled back at her.

"How did you get Kakashi-sensei here so fast?" Naruto asked.

"He was already here," her master said. "We were talking about plans for your team when a priority message came in from Suna via messenger hawk."

"What does Suna want?" Sasuke asked.

"Akatsuki attacked Suna and managed to maneuver the Kazekage-dono into an unfavorable position and captured him."

"Gaara-san!" Naruto exclaimed. She fought down the impulse to demand that they leave to go rescue him right away. She had not had any contact with him since the Chuunin Exams other than a few letters, but she felt a large amount of kinship toward her fellow jinchuuriki and had been pleased to know that he had turned his life around and gained enough trust from his fellow Suna shinobi to be named Kazekage.

Tsunade paused and glanced at her. After Naruto proved capable of holding herself in check, the Hokage nodded and continued, "Suna has asked for help in recovering Kazekage-dono. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of teams of the necessary strength free right now, so I'll only be sending you to start off with. Team Gai is currently finishing up a routine mission near the border with Kusa. I'll send a message to have them join you after they're done."

"If I know Gai-kun," Kakashi said, "It won't take him long to catch up."

Tsunade nodded. "From the description that Suna sent, the primary culprit is Deidara, a missing nin from Iwa, who used bombs made from clay that he shaped. From what we know of Akatsuki, he has a partner he works with, but Suna did not know who it was—at least when they sent the message. Kazekage-dono's brother, Kankurou-san, was trying to pursue them."

"Akasuna no Sasori," said Naruto.

The others looked at her.

"Those two were the ones that kidnapped me right after the Genin Exam," she explained. "If they haven't switched things around, he'd still be Deidara's partner."

"Sasori is Suna's most infamous missing nin," Kakashi commented. "He was their premiere puppeteer before he left and has presumably only gotten stronger."

"Be prepared to take care of some nasty poisons, Apprentice," Tsunade commanded Naruto. "His grandmother, Chiyo-san, was exceptionally skilled at making them and she was the one that taught him puppetry."

"Will do, Baa-shishou!" Naruto said. She made a Shadow Clone to head to the hospital to pick up a poison antidote kit. The kit contained more antidote-making ingredients that she typically needed to carry on herself. She would still be limited in how much antidote she could make for really exotic poisons, but forewarned is forearmed.

"One last thing," the Hokage said. "Temari-san left to return to Suna earlier today. If you encounter her on the way, let her know what's going on."

Naruto felt her clone arrive outside the door with a Flicker. She had trained her chakra sensing, with help from her cousin Karin, and left it active at a low level all the time. With a group of S-ranked criminals after her, she thought it advisable—especially considering how porous Konoha's walls seemed to be. She did not have close to the range with it that Karin did, or even that she had with her Byakugan, but in most public circumstances it was considered inappropriate to have the Byakugan active.

The clone handed her a scroll which she sealed into one of her vest pocket seals. The storage seals in her vest pockets and thigh holsters were specially made in order to be able to accommodate other storage seals.

"I've got the medical supplies that I'll need," Naruto said. "I just need to pick up my mission kit from home."

"I've already got mine," Sasuke said smugly.

Naruto pouted. "Some of us haven't had the chance to travel or take missions regularly."

"I'd like all three of you to be ready to go at a moment's notice from now on," Kakashi said.

All three chuunin acknowledged the order.

"Meet at the gates in ten minutes," he said before disappearing in a Flicker.

Naruto also used the Body Flicker to go to her apartment as they dispersed. Once there, she made Shadow Clones to grab her mission supplies and secure her home. She sent one to grab some sustenance from Ramen Ichiraku and sent one to inform those who needed to know that she would be gone—Sakura, Shizune, Haku, Karin, and Ranmaru. While her reputation had improved, especially since she had started managing the hospital with Shizune, the only real close friend she had made while Sasuke was gone had been Sakura and maybe Ino.

She made it to the gates within 5 minutes. Sasuke was already there and Hinata arrived moments after she did. Three minutes later her clone appeared with her special delivery. Right at the ten minute mark, Kakashi appeared with a Flicker.

"While I'm gratified and a little surprised that you made it on time, Sensei," Hinata said. "Why did you need ten minutes?"

"I had to check the bookstore, Hinata-chan," he replied with an eye smile.

Hinata and Naruto both growled at him while Sasuke palmed his face.

"If we're five minutes too late to rescue Gaara-san, I'm burning your pervy books," Naruto snarled.

"I noticed that you had a clone make a detour too, Bunny-chan," Sasuke said with a smirk. "Ichiraku?"

Naruto huffed. "I would have left without her and had her catch up."

"You would waste that much chakra on ramen?" Sasuke said.

"It's not like I'm going to run out and Gaara-san and Temari-san both said that Suna doesn't have any good ramen," Naruto responded.

"The same rule applies to you, Naruto-chan," Kakashi said with an eye smile. "If you run out of chakra and it prevents you from saving Kazekage-dono, you're banned from Ichiraku for a month."

Naruto paled.

 _You'll help me out here won't you, Kyuubi?_ she asked the Bijuu.

 _I'm not going to give you my chakra to save your ramen privileges, Stepmother_ , the Kyuubi growled at her.

 _But Akatsuki—the Bijuu_ , Naruto spluttered.

 _Fine,_ the Fox said, _but only to keep the Bijuu out of their hands. Collecting all nine of us can only mean trouble._

 _Do you think they mean to reform the Juubi?_ she asked.

 _They would have to be fools to do so_ , it growled, _but you humans often are._

She noticed that her teammates were all staring at her.

"The Kyuubi saying it won't give you chakra to protect your ramen privileges?" Sasuke asked with a smirk.

She pouted. "Everyone is so mean to me."

It was true that she could probably rip chakra from the Kyuubi without permission if she needed to, but she wanted to avoid that if at all possible. She would do it to save her precious people, but not her ramen, as much as it would pain her.

"Enough goofing around," Hinata said seriously. "Let's go."

They started off at a distance-eating, but steady pace. When they were two kilometers outside of Konoha, Naruto called a halt.

"Now that we're a safe distance from the village, I'm going to summon our transportation," she said.

"You mean to fly us to Suna? Do you have the chakra for that?" Kakashi asked.

"I do," she replied. "And even if I didn't, the Kyuubi is in full support of preventing Akatsuki from gaining the Bijuu."

Naruto sent chakra to her eyes and opened the eye on her forehead. She now had enough control over the Rinne-Sharingan that she could open it without manifesting her chakra externally and becoming a chakra torch. She formed a ram seal and sent chakra and focused on summoning her giant bird.

She had discovered the Animal Path when she had tried to summon a slug without providing blood as an experiment. The technique had failed, but she had felt a "pulling" on her third eye. She had tried again with her Rinne-Sharingan open and ended up summoning a dog-sized carnivorous bunny complete with sharp, pointy teeth and claws. When she had shown Sasuke how to do it during one of his visits back to Konoha, he had ended up summoning a large cat with a tail that split in two. Some experimentation had shown that they could each summon a variety of creatures based on an image that they formed in their minds while doing the technique, but that they summoned different creatures, even if they pictured the same thing in their minds. Originally, they had needed to form the hand seals for the normal Summoning Technique, but now she only needed to use the ram seal, unless she summoned Hinata. Summoning Hinata, and presumably Sasuke, was more unstable and required all of the hand seals. Something about the original technique still required her to use all the hand seals when she summoned slugs.

A very large albino crow appeared in a puff of smoke. For some reason her Rinne-Sharingan summons were all white. The only spots of color on the crow were the copies of Naruto's Rinne-Sharingan in each eye and some black rods that pierced the back of its neck and each foot. Even its beak was a bleached white. The creature was semi-autonomous. She could direct it and share its senses, but did not need to micro-manage it. Besides the crow and the bunny, Naruto had also summoned a relatively small owl, a large two-headed fox.

She pulled a large harness out of one of her vest seals. She created a few Shadow Clones and they fastened the harness to the birds head. She pushed chakra into her legs in order to be able to jump up to the crow's head. "Come on up," she called.

They aranged themselves side-by-side with Sasuke and Kakashi in front and Naruto and Hinata behind them. Each of them grabbed onto the harness straps.

"What do you do when there's no time for the harness?" Kakashi asked.

"Use chakra to hold on," she replied, "but I don't think we want to do that the whole way there."

"How long do you think it will take?" Kakashi asked.

"The bird flies at three times the normal shinobi running speed," she replied.

"Five hours then," he said.

* * *

Two hours into the trip, the bird's basic mind flagged something for her attention below. A kunoichi was jogging at a steady pace in the same direction they were going. Using the bird's superb eyesight, she could tell that it was Temari.

"Temari-san's down below us," she shouted over the wind. "I'm bringing us down."

She mentally directed the bird to land near the Suna kunoichi, but far enough away that she would not do anything rash.

"Temari-san!" she shouted.

"Naruto-san?" Temari returned, eying the bird summon warily. "Is there a problem?"

Naruto nodded gravely and gestured for Kakashi to speak.

Kakashi cleared his throat. "Konoha recently received a priority message from Suna, requesting help. Evidently, Suna came under attack from Akatsuki earlier today. They were able to overpower Kazekage-dono while he was distracted defending the city."

"Gaara-kun!" Temari said, distraught. "Do you know where they took him?"

"No," Kakashi said, "but evidently your other brother was tracking him. We do know that the main Akatsuki member he faced was Deidara the Mad Bomber of Iwa. We have reason to believe that his partner is Akasuna no Sasori."

"We would like to offer you a ride, Temari-san," Naruto said. "It's not the most comfortable, but it is quick. We expect to be to Suna in about three hours."

"Thank you, Naruto-san," she said.

* * *

Kakashi's estimate was fairly accurate—not quite five hours after they left, Naruto had the crow land them two kilometers from Suna's walls.

Temari led them to the front gate.

When they were still a ways away, one of the guards called out, "Halt! Access to Suna is currently limited. Unless you have important, official business, you will have to return from where you came."

"Any news on my brother?" Temari demanded.

"Temari-sama!" the guard exclaimed. "Kankurou-sama is currently in the hospital."

Temari paled. "And my other brother?"

"Kazekage-sama has been missing all day," the guard answered. "Who are these people with you, Temari-sama?"

"These are shinobi that Konoha has sent in response to a request for aid," she explained. "I vouch for them."

"Very well," the guard gestured to his comrades, who let them through the gates.

"The hospital first," Temari said. She turned to Naruto. "You'll help if he needs it, won't you, Naruto-san?"

"Of course," Naruto answered.

At the hospital, Temari demanded Kankurou's location and then led them to him. Naruto picked up Kankurou's charts and scanned through them.

"Shiroi Kiba!" an old woman's voice yelled. "Die!"

She turned to see Hinata holding off the old woman's attack.

"Chiyo," an old man snapped. "This is not the White Fang, but his son."

"You can excuse an old woman for getting caught up in the past, Ebizou," Chiyo said before relaxing.

The Konoha delegation relaxed as well. None of them wanted to get into a fight in the hospital.

"Chiyo-baasama, Ebizou-jiisama, this is the Konaha team that was sent for," Temari said.

Chiyo huffed and said, "You, girl, what are you doing with the boy's charts? I'm personally looking after him by his sensei's request."

"Temari-san asked me to look at him," Naruto said.

"Naruto-san has been trained by Tsunade-dono herself," Temari explained.

"The Slug Girl?" Chiyo said with a huff, folding her arms.

"You'll have to excuse my sister," Ebizou said. "She's been grumpy for the last two decades."

"You have a much higher tolerance for incompetence than I do, Brother Dear," the old woman retorted.

Naruto ignored the byplay. The charts said that the puppeteer had been affected by an unknown poison. She used a poison extraction technique to obtain a small sample of the poison and analyzed the effects. By this time, a nurse had entered the room. Naruto requested ingredients to make an antidote. Unfortunately, some of the ones she needed were rare and Suna did not have much of two of the key ingredients. She had brought some with her, but even then, she probably only had enough ingredients for six doses. She prepared the antidote and administered it to Kankurou. She waited a minute for the antagonist to neutralize the poison and then set about healing the effects. Not long after she had finished, Kankurou awoke with a groan.

"Kankuro-kun!" Temari exclaimed.

Chiyo looked at Naruto with grudging respect. "I knew that that Slug Girl was good, but I didn't expect that she had passed on so much of her skill."

Naruto bowed in acknowledgement.

"I still think no good will come of calling for help from Konoha," the old woman muttered. "Suna must stand on its own strength."

"Behave, Sister," Ebizou told her quietly.

"What happened, Kankurou-kun?" Temari asked.

"It was Sasori," he replied. "He was waiting for me when I tried to follow the crazy bomber."

Chiyo gasped. Her brother placed a hand on her shoulder in support.

"Can you describe the location?" Kakashi asked. "We should be able to follow their trail if we have a starting spot."

Kankurou described a spot in the desert outside Suna.

"I know the spot," said Temari. "I can take you there."

"How will you be able to track them through the desert?" asked Chiyo. "The winds will have disturbed any tracks."

"If we get there soon enough, one of my hounds should be able to pick up their scent," Kakashi said.

"Would this help?" Kankurou asked. He took out a scrap of black cloth. "I pulled this off of Sasori in our brief scuffle."

"Yes, it would help a lot," Kakashi said, taking the scrap.

"I'm going with you," Temari said.

"I'm afraid that won't be possible," a voice said from the doorway. Naruto identified the man as the one who had been the Sand Siblings' sensei at the Chuunin Exams."

"Why not, Baki-sensei?" Temari asked.

"With Kazekage-sama taken and Kankuro-san incapacitated, we need you here, Temari-san," he replied. "The people will be comforted to know you're here representing your brother."

"He's right, you know," said Ebizou.

"Someone must represent Suna's interest," Chiyo said.

"We have no one to send," Baki admitted. "That is the primary reason I sent to Konoha. Between repairs and guard duty, we have no one."

Chiyo scowled and said, "I'll go."

"Are you sure, Chiyo?" her brother asked.

"I am," she said firmly. "And if it is Sasori. . ."

Ebizou nodded in understanding.


	3. Chapter 3: Encounter in the Desert

By the time they were done talking to Kankurou, it was night time. Kakashi made the decision to start out early the next morning. It was the logical decision, but it still bugged Naruto. Temari was also obviously trying to contain her irritation at them not setting out right away.

Just after dawn, Temari led the Konoha shinobi plus Chiyo and Baki to a spot in the desert about a kilometer from the walls of Suna. To Naruto, it did not look any different than any other desert spot, but Temari was confident. Temari seemed irritated at Baki's presence. Naruto thought that the man had accompanied them to make sure that Temari did not run off with them.

Kakashi bit his thumb and ran through the hand signs for Summoning and slammed his hand into the ground. A smallish pug dog with a Leaf Badge appeared in a puff of smoke.

"Pakun," Kakashi said, kneeling and holding out the ripped piece of cloak. "I need you to follow the owner of this."

"There's not a person's scent on this, Kakashi-san," the dog said.

"My brother took that off my other brother's kidnapper at great personal cost," Temari said firmly.

"The scent on this fabric is mostly of wood and oil," Pakun insisted.

The three Suna nin shared a look. "The owner of the fabric was a puppet user. Can you find this same scent elsewhere near here?"

"I can recognize the scent," Pakun said. "I'll see if I can find a trail."

The ninken sniffed around for a few minutes before looking off into the desert. "I've found the trail," said the dog.

Naruto impulsively gave Temari a hug. "We'll find him, Temari-san. I promise."

Temari looked at Baki rebelliously before settling her features and saying, "I know you will, Naruto-san."

The blonde girl waved at Naruto, her team, and Chiyo as they followed Pakun into the desert. Pakun led them at a quick walk. Naruto monitored their surroundings with her clones and Byakugan. Hinata did spot checks every ten minutes to make sure that the horned girl was not missing anything.

After they had been following the trail for two hours, Naruto called a halt. "There are two shinobi waiting up ahead right in our path."

"Akatsuki?" Kakashi asked.

Naruto nodded and glanced sidelong at Sasuke. "Hoshigaki Kisame and. . ."

"Uchiha Itachi," Sasuke finished, remembering who the shark man's partner was.

"Will you be able to do this rationally, Sasuke-kun?" Kakashi asked.

Sasuke nodded. "I have some things that I need to ask to him about. I won't go off half-cocked." The boy then stared at Kakashi. "I call dibs."

"You're not fighting him alone," their sensei said.

Sasuke grunted and looked at his teammates. "I'm not as immature or stupid as I was when I was a green genin. I'll behave."

Naruto sighed. "I'll take point on Kisame. Last time I encountered them, I was able to stop his sword from draining me."

Kakashi nodded. "I want Hinata-chan to back you up. Even with Samehada's worst ability neutralized, Kisame is no joke." He turned to the Hyuuga. "I want you to hold back as if you were guarding Chiyo-san while Naruto-chan occupies Kisame's attention. When you see an opening, blitz him. Go for the kill. I'll help Sasuke-kun with Itachi. Once you're done with Kisame, between all of us we should be able to capture Itachi."

"I hardly need babysitting," Chiyo grumbled.

"I believe this is the fastest way to deal with these two S-ranked missing nin so that we can catch up to the ones that captured Kazekage-dono, Chiyo-san," Kakashi said firmly. "Once we no longer need you as cover for our plans to deal with Kisame, you may participate in the capture of Itachi, if you wish."

The old woman grumbled her assent.

The five shinobi resumed their progress, continuing to follow Pakun.

When they reached where the two S-ranked missing nin were waiting, Kisame said, "It looks like Sasori-san's spies were right, Itachi-san. Suna sent for help from Konoha." He had a disconcerting shark-like grin on his face. Oddly, both of them did not seem as strong chakra-wise as when she had encountered them while searching for Tsunade a few years earlier.

Sasuke's brother grunted in acknowledgement. His face was completely blank, even as he said, "Do you have eyes like mine yet, Foolish Little Brother?"

"Why would I do something as short-sighted as that, Blind One?" Sasuke said with a smirk.

One of the last things that Naruto and her three teammates had done before Sasuke left on his training trip was to investigate the Uchiha Clan District. Naruto and Hinata had found a secret chamber underneath the Naka Shrine. The most prominent feature in the chamber had been a stone tablet that could only be read with the Sharingan. Interestingly, it had shown more writing when Sasuke and Naruto had used the Rinne-Sharingan. The tablet purported to be written by Outsutsuki Hagoromo, but the Kyuubi was of the opinion that the tablet had been tampered with as it was more slanted to favor the Uchiha viewpoint than it felt its creator would have written. The tablet told the story of the Kaguya and the Shinju and how she was defeated by her sons. It also told about the Sharingan and its variations and how to activate them. Sasuke had been sickened by the Mangekyo Sharingan and what it took to achieve it, but they had discovered its weakness. He had been grateful that Naruto's chakra had given him an alternative that was at least as powerful, if not more so, without having to succumb to the Curse of Hatred. It had mentioned the Rinnegan but not its powers, unfortunately, except for a disturbing reference to the moon and an eternal dream.

"My problems are easily solved, Little Brother," Itachi said without inflection.

"Not if I don't follow your foolish path, Older Brother," Sasuke said, still smirking. Although, to be honest, they had no idea what would happen if someone with the Mangekyo replaced their eyes with those from someone with a Rinne-Sharingan.

"Not that I don't like a good family dust up," Kisame said, "but can we skip to the violence and bloodshed?"

Naruto stepped forward, and said, "One would think you wouldn't be so quick to fight someone immune to your best tricks, Shark Bait."

"I don't know how you managed to withstand Samehada last time, Kyuubi Brat," Kisame snarled, "but I think you'll find I'm more than enough man to handle you. Have you gotten shorter since I saw you last? Maybe we should come back in 15 years when we can at least have some fun before we rip out your Bijuu."

Naruto fought down the rage that attempted to erupt. She had always been sensitive about her height and the fact that she had always looked much younger than she actually was. She knew that her figure had finally started to look womanly and the implication that she looked like she a little kid combined with the allusion to rape ignited her temper. She knew that Kisame was trying to make her lose control—probably an attempt to get her to release the Kyuubi.

"Do you know who my mother was?" she growled out.

"Why would I care?" the shark man said with a grin.

"My mother was Uzumaki Kushina and all the Elemental Nations knew better than to make the Red-Hot Habanero angry! You'll find that I'm my mother's daughter!"

She activated her Rinne-Sharingan to accompany her already active Byakugan and forced chakra into her hair. Tsunade had insisted that she learn how to do it without going "high order." Her hair grew as it separated into ten tail-like locks. She forced chakra into her bones, increasing their density and causing spurs to to burst through her skin in order to protect her from a strike from Samehada's "shaving" action. She caused her left humerus to poke through her shoulder. She reached up and pulled it out and caused her humerus to regrow. She formed her former arm bone into a very dense and sharp sword. This was one of two Shikotsumyaku tricks she had figured out from fighting Kimimaro before he died. The other was his Finger Drilling Bullets. She had also copied some of his sword forms with the Sharingan.

She was confidant that she could stop Kisame from using Samehada to absorb her personal chakra, but thought he might still be able to absorb chakra from her techniques. This left her with a choice between using Shikotsumyaku or Tsunade's strength technique. Since she needed to use the Shikotsumyaku to armor herself anyway, it was an easy choice even though she preferred to use long-range ninjutsu or if she had to get close, Chakra Scalpels or the Rasengan.

She fired off several rounds of Finger Drilling Bullets with her left hand and used Gale Palm to accelerate them. She was careful to end the Wind Technique before it reached the missing nin so that she did not provide Samehada with fuel.

Kisame batted the finger knuckles out of the air with Samehada and laughed mockingly. "You'll have to do better than that, Little Girl."

"Bring it, Guppy," she taunted.

The shark man looked irritated. She guessed that not many spoke down to him like that. He swung Samehada at her. She grabbed it with a lock of hair and tried to yank it out of his grasp, but she did not have the leverage or the mass to do so. She struck at his wrist with her bone sword, but he let go of his grip on his sword. The sudden lack of resistance caused Samehada to go flying, slipping out of her hair's grasp. In the process, the sword's bandages came off revealing that the sword was actually a spiny creature roughly triangular in shape. The sword growled at her.

"Samehada doesn't like you very much," Kisame said. "You won't give her any chakra."

Naruto rolled her eyes. "Excuse me for not helping the scumbag that wants to kill me."

Kisame grinned. "Most people don't talk to me like that."

Naruto grinned like a fox. "I talk to the Kyuubi all the time. Frankly, you aren't that impressive."

 _I should think not_ , growled the Kyuubi.

"We'll see if you still think so as you're breathing your last breath and the Kyuubi is our prisoner," the shark man said with a snear.

Kisame and Samehada tried to come at her from both sides. She retreated, angling so that Hinata would have a clear shot at his back. She saw that Kisame and Samehada were getting too close to each other, so she fired Finger Drilling Bullets from her left hand again and formed a Tiger Seal to use her Missile Shadow Clone Technique on it. She sent her hair after the sentient sword to try and corral it.

Kisame vomited up a large store of water to use the Water Formation Wall Technique, which blocked the bullets. Samehada jumped around, avoiding her hair.

Suddenly, the wall collapsed and Samehada disappeared in a puff of smoke. Standing where Kisame had been was a glowing Hinata with a single short, glowing horn growing from her forehead. The glow fade and the horn disappeared. Her eyes remained in the Tenseigan stage, however

"This is not Kisame," Hinata said, confused.

Naruto approached and examined the body at her feet. The obviously dead man had a Sand Badge on his forehead. Naruto knelt down and examined the body.

"Traces of Kisame's chakra lingers in him," she said.

"Some kind of possession technique?" Hinata asked.

"Must be," Naruto answered. She produced a scroll and sealed the body into it. "Let's go help the others. They ran over to where Sasuke and Kakashi were confronting Itachi.

It appeared that the two Uchiha had been mostly engaged in a genjutsu battle with Kakashi trying to strike at Itachi while Sasuke distracted him. Naruto and Hinata spread out and the four shinobi boxed the missing nin in. Chiyo, despite her earlier words, seemed content to merely watch.

"You owe me some answers, Itachi," Sasuke said. "Are you going to surrender?"

"Not today, Little Brother," Itachi said. His chakra flared and then diminished. He collapsed, his features changing as he did. The new figure was wearing typical Suna clothing and Sand Badge.

"I recognize him," Chiyo said. "He went missing during Akatsuki's attack on Suna."

"Kisame was also turned into a Suna nin after he died," Naruto said, "but his chakra still lingered in the dead body. It has to be some kind of possession technique. It copied all of their gear—even Samehada."

"Itachi wasn't fighting at his full strength," Kakashi commented.

Naruto nodded. "Kisame had a little less than a third of the chakra he had when I saw him last. I thought it was odd, but he still had a huge amount, so I didn't put much stock into it."

Naruto sealed the body into another storage scroll. She handed both of them to Chiyo. "As Suna's representative, I think it's appropriate that you take charge of the bodies."

"I suppose," Chiyo grumbled, "since we don't know whether they're traitors or victims."

"Let's continue," Kakashi said. He whistled and Pakun came out of hiding.

They resumed following the pug.


	4. Chapter 4: The Nature of Art

By late afternoon, they came to the end of the trail—a cave blocked by a boulder with a large seal on it. Naruto used her Byakugan to confirm that Gaara was inside the cave.

"Gaara-san is inside," she said, describing what she saw. "I can also see Sasori and Deidara. There are seven other figures inside that have chakra signatures, but they seem kind of tenuous, like they aren't really there."

"Like the possession technique Itachi and Kisame used?" Kakashi asked.

"No, that looked like the real them, only with less chakra," Naruto said. "This looks like it may be projections? Out of the projections, I only recognize Itachi and Kisame. There's also this ugly statue that Gaara-san's chained to that's sucking out the Ichibi's chakra from him."

"What can you tell us about this seal?" Kakashi asked.

"It's a barrier seal," she said. "I can see that it's also linked to four other seals that protect it which are all roughly 20 meters away."

"So we deactivate the other seals and this one deactivates?" Kakashi asked.

"Yes," Naruto said, "but the other four seals also trigger something else on deactivation. Probably traps."

"Do you know what kind of traps?" Kakashi asked.

She shook her head. "No, however, I think I can bypass all of that by sucking the chakra out of this seal."

"That won't trigger the traps?" Kakashi asked.

She shrugged. "It might, but the only thing I can get out of the seals is that they latch onto the closest person, and we're all far out of their range here."

"Do it," Kakashi said.

Naruto activated her Rinne-Sharingan, put her hand over the seal, and activated her Preta Path. She had some natural chakra absorption ability, but using her third eye and the Preta Path was easier.

Kakashi led the way into the cave.

"We can't let them near the statue!" an unfamiliar voice called. The man had orange hair and purplish eyes with concentric circles sort of like her third eye, but with out the tomoe. He was wearing a defaced Rain Badge. "Cut the connection! Deal with them and we can finish later!"

As they entered the cavern, she examined the five that she did not know. Besides the man with what must be the Rinnegan, there was a woman with an origami flower in blue hair, a man holding a three-bladed scythe wearing a defaced Hot Springs Badge, a man whose face was covered with a gray cowl and a black face mask wearing a defaced Waterfall Badge, and a man wearing a full, orange mask that spiraled around a single eyehole.

 _The man in the orange mask is the man who made me attack Konoha the day of your birth, Stepmother_ , the Kyuubi growled, its voice quivering in rage.

Naruto halted in shock. The man in the mask waved at her cheerfully before the statue and seven of the nine disappeared, leaving only Sasori, Deidara, and Gaara—now free from the chains, but unconscious.

Deidara threw a wad of clay at the ground that expanded into a large bird. He scooped up the unconscious Gaara and jumped onto the bird, rising into the air.

"Heavenly Attraction," Naruto called, using the Deva Path to latch onto Gaara. Deidara tried to keep a hold of him, but Naruto pushed chakra into her hair and sent it toward the Mad Bomber of Iwa.

Deidara swore and let go. Naruto caught him with several locks of her hair and continued to send other locks after the Mad Bomber.

"Divide and conquer, Master Sasori," Deidara called as he maneuvered his clay bird out of the cavern.

"I've got him," Sasuke called, chasing after him.

"I'll deal with my errant grandson," Chiyo said.

"Help her, Hinata-chan," Kakashi said, "Naruto-chan, you make sure Kazekage-dono is alright." He ran after Sasuke.

Naruto examined Gaara. Examining him with her Byakugan, she could see that the Ichibi's chakra was still leaking out of him, albeit slowly. Something still tied him to the statue or whatever they were using to extract the Ichibi. There seemed to still be a lot of the Bijuu's chakra inside him, certainly more than he had of his own chakra, but much less than one ninth of the Kyuubi's chakra.

 _Does the Ichibi's tail have the same amount of chakra as one of yours?_ she asked the Kyuubi.

 _No, it doesn't_ , the Bijuu replied. _I have nearly half of the Juubi's original chakra and the Hachibi has nearly half of the remaining, and so on._ _Of course, since your father stole half my chakra, I currently only have as much as the Hachibi,_ it growled.

That was a relief to Naruto. They had gotten less of the Ichibi's chakra than she had feared at first. She interrupted the chakra drain, and pulled on the trail of chakra. Since she had a high affinity to Bijuu chakra, she did not even need to use her Preta Path. She felt a pull on the chakra, which she resisted and it released as the drain stopped. Gaara went into seizures as the pulling on his chakra system stopped and his chakra snapped back. His own chakra rushed in to fill the void left by the Ichibi's. He was not in danger of chakra exhaustion, but chakra shock was a real danger. Chakra shock happened when a person lost a lot of chakra all at once. For the most part, lower-ranked shinobi did not get chakra shock because they would go into chakra exhaustion first. Strictly speaking, Gaara had not lost a lot of his own chakra, but his body thought it had. The removal process itself did not trigger it, because while he was connected to the statue, his body had thought it was still there.

She synched her chakra to his and re-filled his chakra reservoir until it reached equilibrium. This stopped the chakra shock he was experiencing from being potentially fatal, but he would still be out of commission for hours, if not a day or so. Luckily, she had been present to stop the chakra shock from being worse than it was.

Once the Kazekage was out of danger, she caught up on the other fights. Hinata and Chiyo were doing better than Sasuke and Kakashi. Hinata had managed to destroy a particularly effective puppet that could control iron particles by using the Tenseigan's Chakra Mode. She was currently holding holding off dozens of Sasori's puppets with her Eight Trigrams 64 Palms Shield. Chiyo was backing her up with two realistically-human puppets.

Sasuke was trying to pin Deidara down with the Heavenly Attraction while harrying him with his Animal Path hawk summon, but the Mad Bomber had too much room to maneuver and too many bomb animals to successfully catch him. Sasuke was destroying his clay bomb animals with the Divine Will Technique, but was running into issues with the cool-down. Kakashi was destroying those that got too close with a lightning technique, but had had to resort to using his Mangekyo technique twice to protect themselves. The technique seemed to absorb the bombs, causing them to fade away.

Naruto wanted to help Sasuke and Kakashi since they needed it, but she did not dare leave Gaara unprotected. She decided it was best to help take down Sasori quickly. She formed four Shadow Clones and sent them to help Hinata. Since the clones had their Rinne-Sharingan active, she shared their senses and controlled them real time. She and Sasuke had discovered that the number of Shadow Clones they could control this way without disorientation corresponded to one less than the number of Rinne-Sharingan paths they had mastered and that each clone and their original bodies could only use one path at a time with a several second cool-down before they could switch the paths between the clones. She kept the Deva Path for herself in case she needed the gravity manipulation to defend Gaara.

She did not intend to use the abilities of the paths themselves. She had something special she had not shown anyone yet that she wanted to use. She had first conceived of the idea after she had first learned her father's second-most famous technique and once she had the chakra control to try it, she had practiced it in secret. Her four clone bodies spread out on either side of Hinata, who was beginning to look tired. She pushed chakra into each clone's hair and then manifested a Rasengan on the end of six locks of each clones hair. She had originally wanted to use all ten locks, but six was actually more effective unless she had to defend from the sky as well. She swung the Rasengan locks through Sasori's puppets, splintering them. The four Narutos plus Hinata made short work of the remaining puppets.

A blow from a swinging Rasengan shattered Sasori's tail and Hinata landed a chakra-enhanced palm strike to his chest that smashed him against the wall. A smaller figure leaped out of the ruins of his body. The new figure looked like a teenage boy.

"He hasn't aged a day!" murmured Chiyo. "What have you done to yourself, Sasori-chan?"

"My art is eternal," Sasori proclaimed. "It only seemed right to make myself my greatest masterpiece."

"He made himself into a puppet!" Naruto exclaimed through her Human Path Shadow Clone.

"Let me deal with him," Chiyo said. "He's my responsibility."

"Very well," Hinata said. "We'll back you up, Chiyo-san."

The old woman advanced her puppets against the man-turned-puppet. Sasori had blades and other tricks built into his puppet body, but he found it hard to face off against two puppets wielded by someone of his grandmother's skill. A couple of times it looked like he might have been able to flank one of the puppets, but Hinata prevented it.

Outside, Kakashi used his Mangekyo for the third time. Naruto could tell that he was flagging.

"I need to back up the others," she spoke through her Animal Path Shadow Clone. "I'll leave one of my special clones—just in case."

She left her Human Path with Hinata and the Animal, Preta, and Asura Paths left the cave. By the time her clones reached her other teammates, Kakashi had used his Mangekyo absorption technique to deal with some bomb animals that were swooping in on them. The effort caused him to slump to the ground unconscious. Sasuke was scowling as he alternated between shooting fireballs at the bomber and crushing the bombs with Divine Will.

Animal Path summoned her owl and giant crow to join Sasuke's hawk in harrying Deidara while Preta Path rushed to examine her sensei. Asura Path fired missiles at the bomber. She determined that Kakashi was suffering from Chakra Exhaustion and that his transplanted eye was still demanding more chakra. She synced her chakra to his and transferred chakra into him. She frowned as she examined the stressed Sharingan eye. If it were natural, she could fix it, but since it was a transplant any enhanced healing of the eye might cause his body to reject it. Instead, she turned off the optic nerve to that led to that eye. Any journeyman medic could turn it back on if she were not available.

Another wave of flying bombs came at them as Deidara yelled, "Art is a blast!" Naruto had her three clones intercept the bombs with her Rasengan hair—using all ten locks each.

"Really, Naruto-chan!?" Sasuke grumbled. "Thirty Rasengan at once? From your hair?"

"I thought you'd be happy for the help, Emo-chan," she said with a smirk.

"It's not that I'm not grateful, Overkill-chan," he responded. "It's that whenever I think I'm catching up to you, you pull some new, ridiculously overpowered technique that takes at least twice as much chakra as I use in a week."

She laughed. "Don't feel bad, Emo-chan. You can still be a great shinobi, even if you can't be as awesome as me."

He rolled his eyes and grunted.

* * *

Inside the cavern, Hinata maneuvered behind Sasori and struck his puppet body, disrupting the flow of chakra from his core, which caused him to halt. Chiyo's puppets pinned him with blades that emerged from their hands. One of the strikes damaged the cylinder that was placed where his heart would be if he were still human. Naruto could see chakra leaking from the cylinder.

Chiyo looked sadly at her grandson.

"Don't feel sorry for me, Obaasan," he said. "That puppet boy, the Kazekage's brother, did he live?"

"Yes, he did," Naruto's Human Path said. "I cured him."

"Good," Sasori said. "He was using some of my old puppets. That means that my art will endure. My only goal has been to advance my art."

"What does Akatsuki want with the Bijuu?" Naruto asked.

"Leader-sama keeps the ultimate goal a secret," Sasori said.

"Who is this leader?" Naruto asked.

"He calls himself Pain," the puppet man responded.

"What an odd name," Hinata said.

"You were close to your Hokage, weren't you, Kyuubi-girl?" Sasori asked.

"I was," Naruto answered. "What of it?"

"I have a meeting scheduled with my main spy in his killer's camp in eleven days at noon on the Tenchi Bridge."

"Why would you tell us this?" Naruto demanded.

"As a reward for defeating me and. . ." he said, his voice diminishing.

"And?" Naruto prompted.

"I hate Orochimaru more than you. . ." he said. His voice trailed off into nothing as he expired.

Chiyo's puppets released him and let him slump to the ground. She stood over him with her head bowed.

* * *

Outside the cavern, Naruto said, "Try the Heavenly Attraction again. I'll stop his bomb birds from interfering."

Sasuke grunted and stretched forth his hand and pulled with his Deva Path.

Naruto sent forth her hair from all three clones, forming a bomb-free corridor around Sasuke's technique—which snared the bomber's clay bird. She pumped chakra into her hair to make it strong enough to endure the bombs. She grunted as shockwaves traveled down the length of her hair, but she did not let up.

As the giant bird jerked toward them, she formed two Rasengan at the tips of two of the locks of her Animal Path and shoved them into the bird. The clay bird tore apart, causing Deidara to fall. A lock of her Preta Path's hair grabbed him and yanked him toward them.

Deidara spat out a wad of clay into his other hand and slammed it onto his arm just above where her hair had latched onto him. "You'll never stop my art!" he yelled as the clay exploded, severing his arm. As he fell, he spat out more clay which swelled into another giant bird that swooped underneath him and carried him away.

Sasuke looked at her and gestured with his head toward where Deidara was fleeing on his bird.

She shook her head. "Both Kakashi-sensei and Gaara-san are unconscious," she said. "I should stay with them and I don't think we should split up. He could lead us into a trap."

He grunted in acknowledgement.

"Pick up Kakashi-sensei and bring him inside until we're ready to go," she commanded.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow.

"I'd do it myself," Naruto said, "but I'm too short to carry him easily."

Sasuke snorted as he picked up their sensei.

* * *

Naruto watched as Chiyo ended her silent vigil over her grandson's body. She pulled out a storage scroll and sealed any of the salvageable puppets into it, including the one Sasori had used as his own body.

Naruto had sent her Human Path Shadow Clone outside, in case any other Akatsuki showed up. Hinata had joined her actual body at Gaara's location while they waited for Chiyo to finish.

When Chiyo finished and approached them, she reached down to lay her hand on Gaara's chest.

Naruto grabbed her hand to stop her. "What are you planning to do to my patient?" she asked.

"Your patient?" Chiyo said with a snort. "Not yet, he isn't, girl."

"What do you mean?" Naruto asked with a frown. She would have thought that the old woman would prefer to have the best medical care available for her Kazekage.

Chiyo frowned. "I have a technique that can bring him back."

"Back from where?" Naruto asked, confused.

"The dead, you foolish girl!" Chiyo growled.

"He's not dead," Naruto said patiently. One thing that Tsunade had insisted on was that Naruto learn patience in dealing with her patients and their families, which Naruto thought was ironic considering Tsunade's well-known temper. "We got here quickly enough. He's unconscious because he suffered chakra shock, but it was a relatively mild case. He should wake up by tomorrow morning, if not sooner."

Chiyo looked startled and said, "I knew that!"

"You know a technique that brings back the dead?" Naruto asked interestedly.

The older woman huffed. "I'm positive that it will work. I've never tested it due to its side effect."

Naruto had a pretty good guess as to what the side effect was. "Can't cheat death, huh?"

Chiyo nodded.

"You would do that for Gaara-san?" Naruto asked.

Chiyo looked down at the Kazekage's unconscious form. "He's a good Kage—much better than his father. He's worth more to Suna than I am." She hesitated. "I also regret that I went along with the Yondaime's plan to turn him into a weapon."

Naruto took a moment to realize that she was talking about the Gaara's father, the Yondaime Kazekage, rather than her own father, the Yondaime Hokage.

"It still surprises me how drastically he's changed in the last few years," she continued. "That was you, wasn't it?"

"I like to think I played a part," Naruto said. "I know something of how hard his life was growing up. I just couldn't let him think he was a monster. Then he did the rest himself with help from his sister and brother."

Naruto's clones that were still outside noticed four shinobi approaching. "We have company coming," she said.

* * *

Sasuke was had almost made it to the cave mouth with Kakashi when Naruto's Shadow Clones saw the four shinobi approaching. "Four incoming," she said through her Animal Path.

"Akatsuki?" Sasuke asked as he set down their sensei.

"Should be able to tell in a moment," she responded. "They're moving incredibly fast."

After a moment she smiled. "They're friendly."

Not much later she called out, "You're late, Gai-sensei! We've already rescued the Kazekage."

"No!" exclaimed Lee. He and his teammates accompanied their old sensei. "How will we make our Youth explode now?"

"Lee-kun!" Gai admonished. "There are always opportunities to fan your Flames of Youth! Do not be discouraged or your Springtime of Youth will end!"

"Gai-sensei!" the boy exclaimed. "My Springtime of Youth will never end!"

"Lee-kun!" Gai exclaimed. "Now you get it!"

"Gai-sensei!"

"Lee-kun!"

With practiced ease, Naruto ignored the Green Beasts and turned to Neji and Tenten.

Hinata's cousin asked, "Did you have many problems?"

"Not too many," Naruto replied. "Gaara-san has chakra shock, but will recover completely. Kakashi-sensei overused his Sharingan, _again._ Sasori was killed and Deidara fled, having blown off his arm to escape us."

"Is it a sign of being around Gai-sensei too much that I too, wish we had not missed the fight with two S-class missing nin?" Neji asked with a sigh **.**


	5. Chapter 5: Answers to Questions

None of them wanted to spend anymore time at the Akatsuki hideout. There was a chance that others of the criminal group would come to try and kidnap the Kazekage again. While they thought they could stand up to two or three Akatsuki, if the whole group came they would be hard pressed—and that was if the whole group had capabilities similar to those that they knew of. The fact that one of them had the Rinnegan was troubling.

It was too far from Suna for them to make it back there without traveling through the night, so they decided to camp for the night—especially since Gaara and Kakashi were still unconscious.

As she was getting ready to sleep, the Kyuubi said, _Join me in the seal, Stepmother. There is something I must discuss with you._

 _Okay, Kyuubi-san_ , she replied.

When she lay down for the night, instead of going to sleep, she concentrated on her seal and the Kyuubi. She found herself on the seal's representation of the moon looking up at the Earth hanging in the sky. She turned around until she found the gate that marked the opening in the Kyuubi's cage and began to walk toward it.

"Hello, Stepmother," boomed the deep voice of the Kyuubi.

"Kyuubi-san," she replied politely. "Can you tell me anything more about the man who attacked the day I was born?"

"No," it replied stiffly. "I recognized the gaze of the match to your old teacher's implanted eye, but could tell little because he was a projection." The chakra monster paused before continuing grimly, "I _did_ recognized the statue that Akatsuki were trying to bind the Ichibi into from talks with my father."

"Oh? What is it?" she asked.

"The body of the Juubi," it spat out.

"What!?" she exclaimed.

"When Father created us out of what your predecessor became, it left behind a physical body. Father sealed it into the moon."

"How did Akatsuki get it out of the moon and what are they trying to do with it?" she asked, troubled.

"The man with Father's eyes must have summoned it," the Kyuubi said.

"The Rinnegan?" Naruto asked. "Do you know how it differs from my third eye?"  
"It's similar in that Father had the same abilities that your paths have, but Father never developed the Sharingan's copy abilities," it replied. "Your third eye is the same as Kaguya's, but I don't think she ever showed her complete abilities. For instance, she never showed the copy abilities either, but she hardly needed to, since all chakra originated with her."

"You mean she knew all ninjutsu techniques?" Naruto asked, surprised.

The Kyuubi shook its head. "Ninjutsu were developed after she became the Juubi and was sealed. She used raw chakra manipulation at a much more basic level than ninjutsu because chakra just did what she wanted it to. She mainly used her third eye for making what would later be known as genjutsu—including the one that she reflected off the moon to cast on everyone."

Naruto shuddered. She could use her third eye to cast genjutsu, but it was not her preferred method of fighting. She remembered how awful she had been at dispelling them before her doujutsu manifested. Mizuki had put her under some awful ones in the Academy under the pretense of training her. The helplessness she had felt then probably still colored her perception of them. Now she could break them easily even without her doujutsu due to her now-incredible chakra control and the fact that she could absorb foreign chakra inside of her relatively easily, but the distaste for them still lingered.

"So what does them having the body of the Juubi mean?" she asked.

"They were trying to put the Ichibi into it," the Kyuubi growled. "Whether they intend it or not, they are going to reform the Juubi once they put enough chakra from each of us into it."

"Wait!" Naruto exclaimed. "They don't need all of your chakra? The fact that we saved Gaara-san doesn't stop them?"

"Our minds developed after Father split us from the Juubi," it growled. "It doesn't need them. In fact, getting subsumed into the Juubi is probably the only way one of us can really die."

"How would that work anyway?" she asked. "Can they form the Juubi without me?"

"You aren't Kaguya reborn, Stepmother," the Kyuubi said. "You've inherited her chakra as her heir, but it would still be possible to revive her, even with you still here."

"What!?" she exclaimed.

"Father could revive people in certain circumstances," it stated. "And as much as I would like to, you also can't forget that snake Orochimaru and what he did to your former Hokages."

Naruto shuddered. "He couldn't do that to the Juubi if he got ahold of the statue, could he?"

The Kyuubi snorted. "No. Be thankful that the Juubi's body isn't real flesh and blood. That doesn't mean that there aren't other methods. However, all the ones I know of would require sacrificing all the Bijuu. . ." He squinted at her. ". . .or possibly you."

She grimaced. "Because all the Bijuu are a so much more tempting target than a sixteen-year-old girl. Am I going to have to worry about them coming after me?"

"The number of people that realize that you could short-cut the process are limited. That two-colored fool that you absorbed to come into your inheritance may have been one, but the only others would be my siblings and they would hardly want the return of Kaguya or the Juubi. You also have to realize that a Juubi summoned by sacrificing only you would be limited in its power without collecting the rest of its chakra from the other Bijuu and that they are already after you as my container, Stepmother."

Naruto chuckled ruefully. "I forgot in the excitement. The real question is why anyone would want to recreate the Juubi."

The Kyuubi laughed evilly. "Power, Stepmother. Power. Someone wants to make themselves the ultimate jinchuuriki."

Naruto grimaced. She, herself, would have given up being a jinchuuriki if she could have when she first found out about being one. Now she was used to the Kyuubi and knew that she would miss it, gruff nature and all, if it were released. While its power had been useful, occasionally, when she was a new genin due to the scrapes she had found herself in, she would miss her companion more than its power now. Thinking about what jinchuuriki had historically done and been used for, she did not want to think about what one with the power of the Juubi would do. Thinking about what someone willing to use the methods and people that Akatsuki did with the power of the Juubi was enough to make her never want to sleep again.

"We'll just have to stop them, won't we, Kyuubi?" she said more confidently than she felt. In some ways, she missed the ignorance she had had before becoming Tsunade's apprentice. It was harder to dismiss your problems when you knew the statistics behind them. Still, it was no use worrying about it. Her grin became more real. Somehow she would find a way. She always did.

"Kurama," it said.

"Huh?"

"My name is Kurama, Stepmother," it clarified.

She thrust her fist through the bars. "Call me Naruto, Kurama. Having a friend who shares my mind with me calling me Stepmother is weird, even if I were the right age for it."

"Okay, Naruto," Kurama said with an amused tone in his voice. He reached forward and bumped her fist with his paw. "I'll save that for special occasions."

* * *

Kakashi woke up the next morning not long after everyone else did.

"How long was I out?" he asked.

"Just overnight," Naruto answered him while scanning him with her chakra.

"What's the prognosis, Doc?" he asked.

"About two days to for your normal body to be back to normal," she responded.

"Hey, that's pretty good," he said. "Last time it took about a week."

"This isn't like last time," she said. "Since I'm trained in this now, I can cut down most of your recovery time. However. . ."

"Why do I think I'm not going to like this?" Kakashi grumbled.

"However," she repeated, "you'll need to refrain from using your Sharingan for two weeks, _completely_."

"Why so long?" he asked.

She sighed. "Your body really doesn't like it when you overuse your Sharingan and evidently overusing the Mangekyo is much worse than normal. You're in danger of it rejecting the eye."

He scratched his chin thoughtfully. "A two week vacation doesn't sound too bad."

Naruto sighed again. "I wish you would take this seriously, Sensei. If your body rejects the eye, we couldn't make it cooperate with you again without seriously hampering your capability as a shinobi."

"I _am_ taking it seriously, Naruto-chan," he said with an eye smile. Turning serious, he added, "Deidara is currently a bad matchup for Sasuke-kun. I have some ideas on how to change that which I think will flip the tables on him nicely if we run into him again, but I really had no choice yesterday. I refuse to lose another comrade—especially not one of you three. If it means losing Obito-kun's gift, then so be it."

She smiled faintly and ruffled his hair, which caused him to pout adorably. "Let's just think about being proactive in coming up with contingencies so that you don't have to. Okay, Sensei?"

"Sure, Bunny-chan," he chirped.

She rolled her eyes. It was bad enough that her peers called her that, but it was no use trying to get Kakashi to act like an adult at all. Even though the so-called literature he devoured was labeled adult, it was more teenage fantasy than anything.

Examining and talking to Kakashi took long enough that Gaara also woke up. The Shadow Clone she had watching him quickly created and dispelled a clone so that she would know. She hurried over to examine him herself. When she arrived she sent the clone over to monitor Kakashi to make sure he did not overdue it or abuse his status as injured.

Gaara opened his eyes and noticed her hovering over him. "Naruto-san?" he murmured.

"Hey, Gaara-san," she replied. Once upon a time, she would have called him Gaara-kun or left off the honorific entirely, but Tsunade's diplomacy and manners lessons had sunk in, at least a little. She knew she should call him "Kazekage-dono," but he was her friend and she called her friends by their names if she did not have a nickname for them. Those same lessons told her it was better not to invent a fun nickname for Gaara.

"You had quite the little adventure there," she continued, smiling.

"You came," he murmured.

"Of course I came, silly," she answered, still smiling. "You're my friend."

She put on her "Serious Doctor" face. "As your attending physician, I can tell you that you have a mild case of chakra shock. However, while even a mild case of chakra shock is serious, the treatment I've given you should put you back on your feet and Kazekage-ing within a week." She smiled again.

"Akatsuki?" he asked.

"Chiyo-san killed Sasori with help from Hinata-chan and me," she said. "Sasuke-kun and one of my clones managed to cost Deidara his arm, but he got away. Kakashi-sensei is here too, but he overtaxed himself holding off Deidara with Sasuke-kun until I could spare some of my special Shadow Clones."

Gaara chuckled. "Shadow Clone is a really broken technique in your hands."

She gave him her best fox-like grin. "It's great to be me." She patted his hand. "I'm glad you're okay, Gaara-san. I need to go finish getting my things ready to go. We should make it back to Suna in a couple of hours. Let my clone know if you need anything." She made a Shadow Clone and walked off.

Not long after that, they restarted their journey toward Suna. To Kakashi's dismay, Gai quickly volunteered to carry him. Kakashi tried to get Naruto to detail a clone to do it, but Naruto begged off on being too short for his lanky frame. Gai grabbed him and started running toward Suna before anyone could point out that Naruto could easily adjust her height through her Disguise Technique. Not to be outdone by his sensei, Lee grabbed Gaara before anyone could object and took off following the older Green Beast. Left with no choice, the rest of them formed pursued them. Luckily, Gai had enough sense to let the others get into formation around them so that they were not exposed.

"See Bunny-chan," Sasuke teased her as they ran. "Being so short is not all bad."

"I'm still growing!" she protested.

It was true that most girls her age were at their maximum height, but she examined herself every month or so to make sure that her long bones had not fully calcified. The ends were still cartilaginous which meant that she could still get taller. Whether this was because she was a late bloomer or due to the changes she went through when she was twelve, she did not know.

Her excuse just caused Sasuke to laugh. On the other side of her, Hinata also started to giggle. This caused Naruto to pout. Hinata was just about the perfect height for a woman—not short enough to be confused for a child and not tall enough to be considered too manly. Naruto still could not figure out why her friend was still so self-effacing about the way she looked. Naruto had issues with being mistaken for a child. Her face looked doll-like—which was only emphasized by her odd coloring and abnormal features. It had stopped happening so much once her figure had started to come in, but it still bothered her.

When they were an hour out of Suna, they were met by Temari and a group of Suna nin. Lee set Gaara down and supported him so that the Kazekage could meet his forces with some dignity.

"Gaara!" Temari exclaimed, wrapping him in a hug.

"Temari-san," Gaara replied. The only break in his trademark stoicism was his eyes watering slightly.

Chiyo snorted. "Temari-chan, I thought Ebizou-kun convinced you to stay behind."

The blonde girl glared at the old woman. "Kankurou-kun has recovered enough that I am not needed as desperately and I judged that reinforcements would be appropriate, Chiyo-baasama."

Chiyo shook her head, but said nothing.

Lee reluctantly surrendered care of the Kazekage to a Suna nin, to the junior Green Beast's disappointment. Naruto thought Gaara looked slightly relieved, but it was hard to tell with him. To Kakashi's continued disappointment, he got no such reprieve.

Gaara's return to Suna was met by cheering from the crowds. This was bittersweet to Naruto. On the one hand, she was happy for her friend. His childhood treatment had been worse than hers in just about every way that mattered. For his former detractors to treat him like a hero made her happy. On the other hand, Konoha still treated her with kid gloves. Her help at the hospital and her apprenticeship under Tsunade had helped tremendously as had the fact that she was powerful, but not fox-like—other than her birthmarks. However, her unnatural appearance offset that. It felt like all of Konoha was holding its breath waiting to see if she was a monster or not.

She shook her head. Just because she was distantly related to the Uchiha was no excuse to brood. She smiled. She was going to be happy for her friend!

* * *

They stayed in Suna for two days. This allowed Kakashi enough time to recover. It also allowed Naruto to monitor Gaara's recovery. The Suna medic nin were grumpy at first about an outsider treating their Kage. When she did not lord her skill and power over them, they warmed up to her.

She spent a lot of time talking to Gaara. While she considered him her friend, she realized that they had not had a lot of actual time together. She found him to be serious and intelligent. These were things that anyone who spent more than a few minutes with him noticed. Underneath his surface of steel, she was pleased to find that he was considerate and gentle. This was a far cry from her first impression of him during the Chuunin Exams three years previous.

On their last evening in Suna, Gaara invited her to have dinner with him at his house. She was a little bit nervous because it sounded like a date. When she arrived, she was relieved to find that the atmosphere was casual. It was not that she did not think a date with Gaara would be unpleasant, but dating him would be beyond complicated.

They had a pleasant dinner and conversation. When they were finished, Gaara cleared his throat. He looked slightly unsure of himself, which was unusual for him.

"There's no easy way for me to say this with grace, Naruto-san," he said, "so I'll simply ask it. May I begin courting you?"

Naruto fought an impulse to sigh. "I would really like that, Gaara-san, under other circumstances."

She tried not to wince as she saw disappointment flicker in his eyes.

"Other circumstances?" he asked.

"If we were both Suna nin or both Konoha nin, I would date you in an instant," she said. "However, I don't think a long-distance relationship would work for me and if our relationship progressed what would we do? Konoha would never let me switch allegiance to Suna and the same is true of you leaving Suna to go to Konoha."

"Surely some deal could be worked out," Gaara said.

She grinned. "I don't like to toot my own horn." They both knew that was not really true. She had gotten better, but she was still a bit of a braggart. "But Suna can't afford me. Not only am I the apprentice of the Hokage and the Kyuubi jinchuuriki, but I also have at least three bloodline abilities; two of which Konoha guards jealously."

"I could resign as Kazekage. . ." Gaara offered.

She shook her head. "I couldn't let you do that for me, Gaara-san."

She noticed his stubborn look.

"Gaara. . ." she said, leaving off the honorific for emphasis. "I think we could be great together, but I don't know for sure. I don't want you to sacrifice your dreams for me only to find out later we work best as just friends. Besides, who would take your place as Kazekage?"

The unspoken truth was that if Suna had anyone else who could be Kazekage, Gaara would never have been elected. He had worked hard to overcome his previous reputation as a bloodthirsty monster, but it had still been there when he had been elected. Plus, there was the fact that he was only been fourteen when elected. No matter his power and potential, a fourteen year old only becomes Kage if there is no other choice.

"You're right, of course," Gaara said with a sigh. "I knew it even before I asked. I just. . ." He looked at her and cleared his throat again. "You've made a big impression on me, Naruto." She noted that he too had dropped the honorific.

She laughed cheerfully. "Of course I have. I'm the ever-awesome Uzumaki Naruto!" She struck a pose, then said soberly, "Seriously, Gaara, I'm very flattered that you asked, but I don't want you to waste your time on might-bes. I'm sure there's a nice Suna girl that would love to get to know you."

"None of them understand me the way you do," he said softly.

She gave him a crooked smile and then hugged him. "That doesn't mean they can't be good for you too. We leave early tomorrow, I should go make sure I'm ready to go."

"Very well," he replied, hugging her back. "Friends?"

"Definitely," she said giving him him trademark grin.

When she exited the door of his home she stopped and leaned against the wall. She let tears leak from her eyes for a few seconds before composing herself and heading to her apartment. Why did she have to be so responsible?

* * *

 **Author's Note:** I see Gaara being too formal to call anyone other than a child "chan" or "kun." I have a Naruto with diplomacy beaten into her by Tsunade as part of her Hokage lessons reciprocate. A reminder: to omit a honorific in Japanese shows closeness (more than calling someone "chan" or "kun") when it is appropriate (or derision when it is not).


	6. Chapter 6: A Meeting at Tenchi Bridge

The next morning, the Konoha shinobi departed Suna. Things were slightly awkward between Gaara and Naruto, but she simply ignored the awkwardness and tried to be cheerfully ignorant.

They walked away from Suna because Naruto wanted Kakashi to continue taking it easy on his chakra. Hinata signaled Naruto that she wanted to talk, so they lagged behind the two males.

"What happened between you and Kazekage-dono, Naruto-chan?" Hinata asked quietly.

"He asked me if he could court me," Naruto said with a sigh.

"What did you say?"

"I told him I'd do it in a heartbeat if he were a Konoha nin or I was a Suna nin, but that I didn't see how it would be possible," Naruto responded.

"Yes, that's the reasonable and logical answer," Hinata said. "Why did _you_ give it, Naruto-chan? You've never let logic stand in the way of what you wanted."

"So mean, Hinata-chan," Naruto said with a fake pout.

Hinata wapped her on the shoulder. Naruto answered her seriously, "I'm so close to becoming Hokage I can taste it. Baachan will probably give up the hat in a few years and I'm the leading candidate. If I _knew_ I could find that kind of love with Gaara-san, I'd give up my dream of being Hokage and risk alienating Konoha, but I'm not giving up my dream and my home over a _possibility_. I just regret having to tell him 'no.' He's a nice guy who deserves to find love. It's amazing how he turned out once he gave up his fear and hate."

Not long after that they reached a point far enough away from Suna that Naruto could summon her Animal Path crow. They flew back to Konoha.

* * *

After they finished their report to Tsunade, the Hokage drummed her fingers on her desk.

"Very good work, you four. Make sure you plug the holes in your skills that you've become aware of. Each of you submit a brief description of each member of Akatsuki you saw," she told them. "I want to see if we can identify them."

"Yes, Hokage-sama," they all responded—except for Naruto who called her Baachan.

"Why didn't you use your Human Path on Sasori before he died, Naruto-chan?" asked Tsunade.

Naruto groaned. "I forgot, Baachan." She glanced down at the floor. "To be honest, I don't like using it, especially on a man like Sasori, but I didn't even think about the option."

Tsunade sighed. "I understand your reluctance and I should have given you and Sasuke-san guidelines on when to use it." She rubbed her hands against her temples. "Here they are, you two: against any B-rank and above missing nin from Konoha, if you can't capture them and reasonably hold them, use your Human Path on them. The same applies to any member of Akatsuki or any significant member of Orochimaru's organization. Against any non-Konoha or low-rank missing nin use your own judgement, but lean toward abstaining. Don't use it against shinobi from other villages outside of war unless you're absolutely sure you won't get caught, then use your own judgement again. We don't want you to get a reputation for overtly stealing other villages secrets. Everyone does it, but subtly and it's hard work. Being able to do it easily upsets the balance. Understand?"

"Yes, Hokage-sama."

"Yes, Baachan."

"Do you need us to be involved in checking out Sasori's spy?" Sasuke asked.

Tsunade steepled her hands. "I don't really have any jounin I can spare, especially with Kakashi-san out of commission for a couple of weeks. Still, this is important. Despite three of you being only chuunin and lacking experience, you are among my most powerful shinobi. I want all of you minus Kakashi-san to come back tomorrow at seven in the morning and I'll pair you with someone with more experience to try and capture the spy."

"Yes, Hokage-sama."

"Yes, Baachan."

* * *

Naruto joined her teammates at the Hokage's office the next morning. A man with the standard Konoha shinobi outfit complete with a jounin flak jacket was also present. The only real distinguishing part of his clothing was that his Leaf Badge was integrated with a happuri. [ _cheek and forehead protector_ ]

"This is Yamato-san," Tsunade said. "He will be your team captain for this mission which is to capture Sasori's spy and bring him to Konoha for interrogation about Orochimaru and Akatsuki. He was chosen due to his ability to imitate one of Sasori's puppets. Spend the next five days training together. That will give you plenty of time to travel to Tenchi Bridge using Naruto-chan's bird summon and arrive in time to scope it out before the spy arrives."

"Yes, Hokage-sama."

"Yes, Baachan."

They followed Yamato out of the Hokage's office.

"Which training ground do you use?" he asked.

"Seven," Sasuke answered.

"Meet me there in an hour," he said.

"Yes, Taicho," [ _captain_ ] they all answered.

Yamato walked off.

"Taciturn, isn't he?" Naruto commented.

"How did you learn that word, Dead Last?" Sasuke teased.

Naruto stuck out her tongue at him.

* * *

Team Kakashi, and they still considered themselves that despite their new temporary captain, had not had a lot of time to practice together since they were temporarily disbanded when Jiraiya took Sasuke on his training trip. They took the opportunity before they left for Tenchi Bridge to reacquaint themselves with each other's fighting styles and to assimilate the new techniques that they had each learned. By the end of the first day they were fighting like they had not been apart for nearly three years. It helped that they new each other's personalities well. It was not hard for them to know what each would do—at least as well as any team with Naruto on it could.

Yamato, despite having a quite different personality than Kakashi, appeared to know their old sensei well. After a brief hesitation, he had revealed that he could do Mokuton [ _Wood Release_ ] Techniques. He said that he was not a Senju, but that the reason he could do Mokuton was personal. He used his Mokuton to create a puppet shell that looked like Sasori's outer puppet with feedback from the three chuunin to get it correct. Naruto and Hinata also helped him perfect the voice for the fake puppet.

Naruto thought his chakra felt familiar. After some thought she realized that there was a great deal of similarity to the chakra of the white half of the weird Zetsu creature that had been involved with Akatsuki.

When Naruto asked Tsunade about the similarity between Yamato's chakra and the Akatsuki creature's, the Hokage had told Naruto that Yamato had been subjected to experiments done by Orochimaru using her grandfather Hashirama's cells, which is what allowed him to use Mokuton.

"That has some disturbing connotations," Naruto said.

Tsunade scowled. "You're telling me! I hate that Orochimaru has continually desecrated my grandfather's body."

"You think Orochimaru created that Zetsu thing while he was in Akatuski?" Naruto asked. She really hated that idea, since Zetsu had also had Kaguya's chakra. She did want to think of what could happen if the Snake Traitor managed to Impure Reincarnate Kaguya or make a clone of her.

Tsunade sighed. "I don't know. I can't even tell if him having done so is the better outcome or not."

Yamato decided to split the team into pairs for combat. He and Sasuke would work together and the team's two kunoichi would also work together. This made sure that each member of the team always had backup.

Yamato himself was a serious type, but he took special glee in terrorizing Naruto to keep her in line—mostly through scary faces and startling her when she was not paying attention. This amused Sasuke to no end that a shinobi as powerful as Naruto could be cowed by a scary face or that someone who was a chakra sensor _and_ had the Byakugan could be snuck up on. Naruto retaliated by using seals to turn all the clothes of both male members of the team bright orange one night. To Naruto's irritation, Sasuke used his Sharingan to find the seals and then deactivated them by using his Preta Path before appearing in public. Hinata had to intervene to get Naruto to remove the seals from Yamato's clothes.

Naruto debated whether she should try and develop Mokuton techniques, but decided she had too many techniques she had mastered or was mastering to add another style to her repertoire, at least for now. She thought it might be possible due to all of the White Zetsu's chakra she had absorbed and the fact that she was heir to the "Mother of Chakra."

Kurama mentioned that her mother had formed chains from her chakra that had the same chakra-surpressing effect that the Mokuton had. Instead of trying to learn Mokuton, Naruto worked on adding chakra suppression to her hair technique. She figured out how to do it during their last training day.

* * *

Team Kakashi arrived at the Tenchi Bridge a day early. Naruto and Hinata both went over the bridge and its environs with a fine-toothed comb, but did not find any traps.

As the time for the meeting approached, Yamato created the puppet shell and did some last minute voice practicing. The four of them were staking out the bridge from under cover of trees on the side of the ravine. Naruto was monitoring the other side of the ravine with her Byakugan.

"Someone's coming," said Naruto. "It's Kabuto! Be careful, Yamato-taicho. He's arrogant, but very hard to injure permanently. He's got a very effective regeneration technique."

"I will," said Yamato. He climbed inside his altered Wood Clone and it walked out onto the bridge. He reached the center moments after the spy.

Naruto and Hinata watched the exchange through their Byakugan so that they could read their lips. Sasuke grumbled about not being able to see through Yamato.

"I felt your Sleeper Technique go active two weeks ago, Sasori-sama, and so here I am," Kabuto said.

Yamato made the puppet shell nod. "What are Orochimaru's plans and where is his location?" he asked.

Naruto gasped as a large chakra signature rocketed toward the bridge.

"Incoming," she said. "It's Orochimaru."

The Snake Summoner landed on the bridge behind Kabuto. The spy backed up in order to stand beside Yamato-disguised-as-Sasori.

"Did you really think that I would let a spy get this close to me without having him watched, Sasori?" Orochimaru asked.

"Be ready to intervene," Naruto said. "Hinata-chan and I will take Kabuto while Sasuke helps Yamato-taicho with Orochimaru. We'll hurry as quickly as we can so that we can all focus on the Snake." She was best suited to take down the rogue med nin and Yamato had told them not to take on anyone A-ranked or above on without backup unless they absolutely had to.

Sasuke grunted in acknowledgement while Hinata murmured her agreement.

Kabuto formed chakra scalpels, but his stance was wrong to attack Orochimaru.

"Go!" shouted Naruto. She activated her third eye and Body Flickered to directly behind Kabuto. The traitor felt her coming and leaped into the air before she could slam a Rasengan into his back.

She pushed chakra into her hair and sent it after him. Kabuto Body Flickered off the bridge where he was intercepted by Hinata. The Hyuuga heiress used chakra-coated palms to deflect his chakra scalpels. The Eight Trigrams symbol appeared beneath Hinata as she launched into the 64 Palms. Kabuto managed to dodge or deflect the initial strikes, but succumbed before she was finished.

Naruto Flickered next to them. She could already see Kabuto's incredible regeneration opening his closed tenketsu. Naruto wrapped him in her hair and suppressed his chakra.

"We'll never be able to hold him without me continually suppressing his chakra," she said with a sigh, "and it will take all of us to handle the Snake."

"Do it," Hinata said.

Naruto grimaced and activated her Human Path and yanked out Kabuto's soul. His scream filled her ears as memories surged into her head. She bundled all the memories together and sent them to Kurama to hold and sort through.

"Torch him," Naruto commanded as she withdrew her hair from the traitor's dead body.

Hinata formed the seals for the standard body cremation technique and Kabuto's body burned to ash.

"How dare you dispose of my tool before I am done with him!?" yelled the Snake Sannin. A body with a whole through it's chest lay at Sasuke's feet, but Orochimaru had used his unique Body Replacement to escape death by slithering out of his old body's mouth.

"We dare by order of the Godaime Hokage, traitor!" Naruto answered. "Don't worry you'll get what's coming to you too!"

"You think you've really deprived me of my servant?" Orochimaru asked with a sneer. "No one escapes my service. A fact you three would do well to remember."

"We've thrown off your mark, Snake," Sasuke sneered back. Personally, Naruto thought that Sasuke's sneer was better. No one sneered like an Uchiha. "The portion of your soul you implanted in us squealed as we destroyed it."

"Your eyes will be mine, one way or another, boy!" Orochimaru said.

Lightning Chakra sprang up around Sasuke and he called out, "Heavenly Attraction!" Orochimaru started to be pulled toward the Uchiha boy, but he suddenly split into dozens of snakes. The snakes slithered off the edge of the bridge, except for the one that Sasuke decapitated with his chokutou [ _straight sword_ ] as it continued to fly toward him in the grip of his technique. The snakes landed in the water below and were washed downstream in the current. Some of them were already swimming to shore in different locations.

"Those snakes were like Shadow Clones in that they all had identical chakra circulatory systems," Naruto said. "I can't tell if one or all of them was the real Orochimaru."

"We'd never be able to track them all down," Hinata added.

"The odds of us capturing or killing Orochimaru on this mission were always low," Yamato said. "Did you use your mind-reading technique on Kabuto?"

"Yes," Naruto said with a depressed sigh. She was going to have to endure days of interviews with Morino Ibiki when they got back to Konoha.


	7. Chapter 7: The Two Uchiha

Hashing out Orochimaru's current activities with Ibiki was just as pleasant as Naruto had imagined—in other words, not at all. However, it needed to be done, so she did not complain during the three days she spent squirreled away in the Torture and Interrogations Building. She _did_ make sure to tell Sasuke that it was his turn to use the Human Path next time.

A couple of days after she was done with T&I, Sasuke asked her and Hinata to come to his house for a discussion after team training.

"What's up, Sasuke-kun?" Naruto asked him once they got settled.

"I think it's time to go after Itachi," he said bluntly.

"You think you can take him now?" she asked equally blunt.

He stared at her seriously. "I think I'm more powerful than he is, but I don't think that means that I can take him in a one-on-one fight. However, I hardly need to do so, do I?"

Naruto shoved him in the shoulder and then looked at Hinata. "Look at our Emo-chan—acting all grown up and mature!"

Hinata rolled her eyes at Naruto's antics while Sasuke slapped her hand away.

"Do you think that you can handle Kisame?" he asked in return.

Naruto nodded. "Kisame is used to having more chakra than anyone other than a jinchuuriki and being able to absorb any chakra used against him. While I'm not saying he doesn't have a few other tricks up his sleeves, I'm confident I can handle them—especially with Hinata-chan to back me up."

Sasuke nodded. "That is a pretty effective combination: Overkill-chan to draw and hold his attention while Hinata-chan flashes in for the kill while he's distracted—especially if it appears that Hinata-chan is helping with the other target."

Hinata nodded. "If we used the Byakugan to watch for signals that no one else can see, that could work exceptionally well."

Naruto gave Hinata a high five which the Hyuuga heiress accepted good-naturedly.

"How are we going to find him?" Naruto asked.

"What's the range on your Byakugan?" Sasuke asked.

"Twenty kilometers," Naruto answered.

Sasuke turned to Hinata who answered, "Fifteen kilometers." Naruto had better range, but Hinata was better at details and observing many things at once.

Sasuke turned back to Naruto and asked, "What about that Uzumaki sensing technique that your cousin was teaching you?"

Naruto frowned. "My range with the Mind's Eye is relatively short—only about 500 meters. I've been working on my sensitivity much more than my range because I can use the Byakugan if I need range. Karin-chan's range, however, is much better—she can cover half of Hi no Kuni if she concentrates without any problems."

"What's this?" Sasuke teased. "Overkill-chan admits that someone else is more powerful with something than she is?"

Naruto snorted. "If I wanted to really find someone, I'd make dozens of clones and send them out with their Byakugan. I figure I could sweep all of the Elemental Nations in a week."

Sasuke turned pale.

Hinata giggled. "You know that you shouldn't prod at Overkill-chan like that. You'll just give her ideas."

Naruto gasped. "Hinata-chan! You too!"

Sasuke shook his head. "I'm sorry, but the image of hundreds of Naruto-chans rampaging through the Elemental Nations went through my head."

Naruto slapped his shoulder. "I'm not that stupid!" she snapped.

Sasuke interrupted with a cough that sounded somewhat like the word "anymore."

She glared at him and continued. "I've learned subtlety. My clones would be Disguised as animals or other people."

Sasuke just shook his head and said with mock solemnity, "No ramen anywhere would be safe!"

Hinata started to giggle again while Naruto rolled her eyes—however, she could not stop a grin from escaping and ruining her mock annoyance. She turned thoughtful after a few moments. She had been procrastinating deciding whether or not to teach Sasuke the Rasengan. There was no guarantee that he would learn it in time to help with taking down Itachi, but she was not going to allow one of her precious people to get hurt when she could avoid it by letting go of a little bit of familial pride.

She plastered a vulpine grin on her face and called out with mock honey in her voice, "Oh, Emo-chan. . . You and I have a date with some water balloons and rubber balls." She cackled maniacally just to wind him up some more. The look of foreboding on Sasuke's face almost made teaching him her father's technique worthwhile all by itself.

* * *

When the three of them approached the Hokage and explained that they felt they were ready to go after Itachi, she grunted and said, "And do you have a plan for locating the man who has steadfastly avoided hunter nin for the last eight years?"

Sasuke and Hinata shared smirks. Naruto was aghast—Hinata was smirking? What had her years with Anko done to sweet, innocent Hinata?

Sasuke said, "We have two options to find Itachi: the first is to turn loose a horde of Naruto-chan's Shadow Clones upon the Elemental Nations. . ."

Before the Uchiha could finish, the now-pale Hokage interrupted, "The second choice! The second choice!"

Naruto folded her arms and pouted. "Baachan," she complained—her voice did not whine—not at all.

Sasuke nodded with a smirk. "Very well. I'll tell Karin-san that we have need of her services."

"Teasing my apprentice aside," the Hokage said, "do you really think that Karin-chan is ready for a combat mission of this magnitude?"

"We don't expect her to see combat, Baachan," Naruto said. "Once she gets us to within 10 kilometers, Hinata-chan or I can track down Itachi. With her sensor skills, no one is going to be able to sneak up on her."

Tsunade arched an eyebrow at her.

Naruto rolled her eyes. "While I think you guys are overreacting to me using clones to find him—I have learned subtlety, after all—using Karin-chan is not a bad idea. Depending on where he's hiding she could be faster."

"There still that matter of selecting a jounin to accompany you," the Hokage said. "Even if you wait the remainder of his recovery time, I can't afford to send Kakashi-san with you."

The three chuunin looked at each other. "I thought he was assigned to anti-Akatsuki efforts with us," Hinata said.

Tsunade sighed. "Certain elements within Konoha are claiming that there is no evidence that Akatsuki is planning to move against Konoha or Hi no Kuni and are agitating for Kakashi to be reassigned. These elements have the political influence to cause problems for me if I ignore them."

Naruto's jaw dropped. "They just tried to kidnap the Kage of our staunchest ally!"

The Hokage snorted. "And you bloodied them quite thoroughly. These elements claim that Akatsuki would be foolish to attack us now."

Naruto palmed her forehead. "Idiots!" she ground out.

Tsunade cackled. "Still want to be Hokage, Brat? Since these elements are typically advocate for a more hawkish stance, their attitude is lulling the neutrals into thinking we're fine."

"Danzou and his games!" Naruto growled.

"You expected anything different from him?" the Hokage asked. "Now, I can assign you another jounin—but probably not one of Yamato-san's skill level much less Kakashi-san's."

The three chuunin looked at each other again before Naruto spoke, "We could probably work with Yamato-taicho again, but. . ."

"Anyone of lesser skill would just slow us down," Sasuke interjected bluntly.

Tsunade arched an eyebrow.

"You said we were jounin level skill-wise, Baachan," Naruto stated. Hinata nodded in agreement.

The Hokage steepled her hands and said, "That is true." She stared at the three of them. "You three have been attracting some very positive attention with the rescue of the Kazekage and the death of Sasori and Kabuto. I could make one of you a jounin without messing up our plans. . ."

Hinata and Sasuke shared a look before shoving Naruto forward.

"Really, guys?" she asked them. "Are you sure?"

Hinata smiled and nodded.

Sasuke shrugged and then smirked. "You're the one that wants the Hat. Personally, I don't see why you want to be Hokage—too much talking to people instead of setting them on fire." He shuddered theatrically.

The Hokage cleared her throat. "Yours would be the easiest promotion to sell, Brat. You're easily our most powerful shinobi since my grandfather, the Shodai, your work at the Hospital shows leadership, and your recent defeat of several A and S-rank shinobi shows you also have a high level of combat skill."

Naruto blushed. "Well, I'm certainly not going to turn down a promotion."

Unlike promotion to chuunin, promotion to special jounin and jounin were done by the Hokage rather than a committee. There also was not a formal test, although there was often an unofficial one. Usually, a person was nominated by their department head—although strictly speaking, Tsunade was the equivalent of Naruto's department head since she reported directly to her for the hospital and her apprenticeship.

"Does this mean that my apprenticeship is over, Baa-shishou?" she asked.

Tsunade smiled. "Your official apprenticeship is over, Brat," she said, "but don't think this means I don't have anything else to teach you."

Naruto ran and hugged her. "Of course not. You'll always be Baa-shishou to me."

The Hokage grunted and pushed her away. She threw a paper weight at Naruto as she danced away; Naruto knew her teacher's habits and dodged it easily. "Don't call me that," Tsunade grumbled by rote.

* * *

Karin was happy to help them track down Itachi. Naruto thought her cousin wanted a chance to ingratiate herself to Sasuke, but since she and Haku had managed to temper the worst of Karin's fangirlisms, she was not too concerned about it. Haku, who was Karin's roommate, was present when Karin was asked, volunteered to go with them so that Karin would not be left alone when Naruto and her teammates confronted Itachi.

Karin and Haku had both completed their basic med nin training and worked shifts at the hospital. Neither one of them had a real desire to be active shinobi, but Haku had kept her training up after their run in with Kimimaro three years ago and had insisted that Karin train with her. The ice nin never wanted herself or her friend to be helpless, having experienced the feeling several times in her life. The two were in the reserves and only took a few field missions a year.

Their actual departure had to wait a few days for Naruto to get an orientation on her new jounin responsibilities. They all boiled down to: do not embarrass Konoha. Naruto thought the whole thing was silly. She already knew the points they covered due to her responsibilities in the hospital and as the Hokage's aide. However, she put up with it without comment since only experienced and established jounin like Kakashi were allowed to be immature.

Unfortunately, Sasuke had stalled out in his progress at learning the Rasengan. Naruto gave him more hints than Jiraiya had given her, but learning to shape chakra was difficult and he was still working on the second stage. Sasuke, while appreciative of her efforts, was not willing to wait—so they departed the day after Naruto finished her orientation.

The five of them left Konoha and spiraled out from there. Naruto sent out clones to scout as was her practice. While technically they did not need to with Karin with them, Naruto thought it best not to get lazy—besides this left Karin free to concentrate on their target.

After three days, they had looped around Konoha several times and were approaching the border with Kawa no Kuni from the northeast when Karin called for a halt.

"Found him!" Karin exclaimed.

"How sure are you?" Sasuke asked.

"Almost positive," she responded. "Assuming there aren't any other Uchiha survivors. This guy's chakra is quite similar to yours, Sasuke-kun."

The answer made Sasuke frown, but he remained silent.

"Is he alone?" Naruto asked.

Karin nodded firmly. "Now that I've pinpointed him, I can focus in on the area he's in. There's no other person within several kilometers of him."

The entire group frowned at that. Hinata voiced the thought that was going through all their minds, "What happened to Kisame?"

Karin shrugged and said, "I don't know his chakra signature, so I can't find him with any certainty—all I know is that he's not with Itachi."

* * *

Naruto and her teammates left Karin with Haku and proceeded according to the redhead's instructions. A half hour later, Naruto saw their target sitting next to a tree with his eyes closed as if he were meditating. "I see him," she said. "Still no Kisame."

They adjusted their course slightly according to Naruto's gestures and continued on.

When they were just outside of what Naruto and Hinata thought was Itachi's range, they paused for a moment to rest and confirm their strategies.

"You ready for this, Sasuke-kun?" Naruto asked after they had gone over everything.

Sasuke grunted in the affirmative. "I want answers more than anything. There are too many inconsistencies surrounding what supposedly happened back then and later on."

Naruto grinned at him. "You're much better to be around now that you've moved passed the mindless need for revenge."

"I still want justice for my clan, but it doesn't consume me like it used too."

They advanced on the missing nin with Sasuke leading him and the girls flanking him, half a step behind him. All three of them engaged the highest level of their doujutsu in order to protect themselves from Itachi's genjutsu. Sasuke stopped at comfortable distance for a mid-range technique. Naruto had noticed something odd about her teammate's traitorous brother—he had a large amount of chakra cycling through his body continuously. Her medical experience told her that he had been doing it for several days and that it was having a deleterious effect on him.

"Foolishly blind older brother," Sasuke said in greeting.

Itachi's head moved in their direction. There was a visible film over the spinning, red Sharingan. Had his blindness gotten that bad?

"Have you come to donate your eyes to me, Little Brother?" Itachi asked calmly in return.

"Hardly," Sasuke retorted. "I've come for answers."

"I've already told you all the answers you need," Itachi replied. "Do you need me to show you again what happened that night?"

Sasuke ignored him and asked, "Why did you do it?"

Itachi ignored him in turn and said, "You realize that I'm going to incapacitate all of you and then make you watch as I torture your friends to death. Their deaths will be your fault for bringing them here. Once you realize this you will know true power, only to lose it when I take your eyes to replace my own."

"You're lying," Hinata snapped. The Hyuuga heir was a master of using the Byakugan to monitor vital signs and determine if someone was being truthful. Hinata had taught Naruto how to do it also, but she was not nearly good enough to catch someone like Itachi in a falsehood.

"You can barely fight in your condition," Naruto added. "There's no way you can beat Sasuke, much less all three of us." She could see his heart beat faster. "You don't expect to survive," she added uncertainly, "You want Sasuke to kill you."

"You're trying to get me to redeem the Uchiha!" Sasuke exclaimed. "Why?"

Itachi stared at his younger brother for a full minute before finally saying, "It's better if you don't know."

Naruto snorted in a very unladylike manner. "Take it from somebody kept in the dark 'for her own benefit,' it's better to know than to be left to make up your own answers."

Itachi hesitated again. He stopped circulating his chakra before answering, "I did it for you, Sasuke-chan. Father was on the verge of trying to overthrow the Third. It would have surely caused a civil war in Konoha, which would have brought the other villages down on us brought down the Fourth Shinobi World War upon us. You deserved more than to grow up like that."

"You were trying to preserve my childhood!?" Sasuke asked incredulously. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

"There's no way Jiichan would have had you do it," Naruto said.

"The Third could be ruthless when it was required," Itachi commented.

"To his enemies," Naruto said with her eyes narrowed, "but not to you."

"You're protecting someone," Hinata commented. "Why?"

Itachi remained stoically silent.

"Not the one that had you do it," the Hyuuga mused. "You're protecting Sasuke. The question is from whom?"

"Danzou," Naruto said with a growl. Itachi's nearly imperceptible flinch confirmed it. "He's the only one insane enough and influential enough to have ordered it. Do you know why he did it?"

Itachi remained silent for a while before evidently deciding that trying to convince them otherwise was useless. "Danzou really only has one solution for problems—eliminating them."

The older Uchiha slumped back against the tree. Naruto frowned and noticed the symptoms for chakra shock now that he was no longer maintaining his chakra flow. She rushed forward.

"What is it?" Sasuke asked worriedly.

"Chakra shock," she replied. "It seems he's determined to die today."

"It's better this way," Itachi stated.

"Hah," Naruto ejected. "No way are you dying in front of me."

"Fatal, untreatable illness," Itachi murmured. "Held it at bay for Sasuke-chan."

"Maybe untreatable for someone who's not Tsunade's apprentice," she responded as she got to work.


	8. Chapter 8: Zombies!

It took some doing, but Naruto was able to stabilize Itachi. His chakra shock had and still did make things much more complicated than they should be. She would not be able to really start on a real treatment for the underlying illness until she had some time. She reached into one of her pockets and pulled out a special patient stasis seal scroll and sealed Sasuke's brother into it. She slipped the scroll into another pocket.

"That bad, huh?" Sasuke asked.

She sighed. "He's in the terminal stages of a fatal disease and he has chakra shock on top of that from overextending his chakra to keep his body going. I can't even begin to treat the underlying cause until he's past the chakra shock. I need time to really help him and this isn't the place to do it. To be honest, I didn't even take the time to really examine what's causing his body to shut down."

"How do you know he's stable then?" Sasuke asked tenuously.

"I've managed to implement a temporary solution to his symptoms," she responded. "In combination with the stasis seal, he'll last until Baachan, Shizune-neechan, or I can look at him more thoroughly."

"Are we done here then?" asked Hinata.

Both Sasuke and Naruto agreed and they set off at a jog to return to Haku and Karin. Ten minutes into their return trip, Naruto felt one of her clone scouts pop. Her new memories told her why.

"Karin-chan and Haku-chan are coming toward us at high speed," she told her teammates.

"Should we wait for them to arrive or speed up to meet them sooner?" Sasuke asked.

"Speed up," Naruto indicated. "Either they're in trouble and need help or they have something important to tell us."

With both sets of shinobi running at high speed, it did not take them long to meet.

"What happened?" Naruto asked.

"There's a fight about to happen about 25 kilometers north of here," Karin said. "Asuma-san, Shikamaru-san, and the two chuunin that are always at the gate versus someone with S-rank chakra and someone with A-rank chakra that feels more disgusting than Orochimaru. The S-rank chakra threat is weird in that it seems to be made up of one A-rank source connected to four subordinate B-rank sources. We started coming towards you once I noticed the two strange sources coming into our general area. They stopped 15 minutes ago and were meeting with a B-rank chakra source. Asuma-san and the others are zeroing in on their location."

Naruto glanced at her teammates. The last she knew of Asuma was that he had been sent to check out an attack on the Fire Temple, but she could not discuss the Hokage's mission assignments—especially not in the earshot of two reservists.

"Unknown A and S-rank chakra sources in Hi no Kuni can only be trouble," Sasuke said.

"It's unlikely that another village would send their high-ranking shinobi into Hi no Kuni without notifying Konoha," Hinata added.

Naruto agreed—especially if this were related to the attack on the Fire Temple. No other village would dare attack the Temple—seeing as that would be a declaration of war over something with little strategic value.

"Which leaves Akatsuki," Naruto said out loud. "I don't see Orochimaru directly employing any other S-rank shinobi. He'd be too worried about being supplanted.

"While chakra strength doesn't correlate directly to skill," she continued. "We can't leave Asuma-san to fight an S and A-rank pair with only three chuunin as backups." While Shikamaru could punch above his weight-class due to his intelligence, she didn't want to rely on that to save them. Besides, Akatsuki were their job and she did not want to waste the opportunity. "Can you give me an exact bearing, Karin-chan?"

They weren't that far outside her own Byakugan range. She should be able to pinpoint them once they got going.

Karin pointed her a direction just east of true north. Naruto opened her Rinne-Sharingan eye and summoned her giant crow.

"Head back to Konoha, Karin-chan, Haku-chan," she told the two young women. "You can tell the Hokage that we accomplished our mission and that we've gone to aid Asuma-san against suspected Akatsuki."

Haku and Karin nodded and took off toward Konoha at a jog. After quickly removing the bird's harness from a storage seal and having clones attack it to the summons, Naruto and her teammates boarded the bird. A couple of minutes after taking off, she caught sight of the fight with her Byakugan. She briefed her teammates on the fight, with Hinata joining in once they got within her range.

Both of the enemy shinobi were wearing standard Akatsuki black robes with read clouds on them. The A-rank chakra threat wielded a triple bladed scythe and wore a slashed badge from Yu, which was notable because the village no longer fielded shinobi. The scythe had a long cord attached to it that ended in a short spear. The S-rank threat wore a slashed badge from Taki and his body was covered in crude stitches. He had four masks attached to his back which seemed to be the subordinate chakra sources.

Asuma and the presumed A-rank threat were facing off against each other, while the presumed S-rank threat and the three chuunin watched warily. It looked like they were still in the posturing phase of the fight. The presumed B-rank threat was hiding in the building. Unfortunately, it did not appear that they would arrive before the fight started. She only hoped that the S-rank threat would stay out of the fight until they arrived.

Asuma engaged the Yu missing nin in a close range scuffle that lasted several minutes. The fight broke temporarily as the missing nin grazing Asuma with his triple-bladed scythe. The Akatsuki jumped back and licked the bloody blade of the scythe and began to draw a seal on the ground just as Asuma launched a Fire technique at him. Naruto frowned as the enemy shinobi emerged from the conflagration unscathed, but with his face looking skull-like. Asuma clutched his arm in pain. The Akatsuki had some sort of damage transference technique, probably triggered by the ritual.

Shikamaru took the opportunity to intervene using the Shadow Bind Technique. After a few moments, Shikamaru used the Shadow Sewing Technique to force the Akatsuki out of his seal. The skull effect faded and Asuma used his Flying Swallow Technique to cut off his head. Surprisingly, the decapitated head continued to talk—or at least its lips moved—and its body continued to move independently. From what Naruto could lip read, the disembodied head was mainly uttering profanities. She wondered if he could actually speak without air moving through his voice box.

 _The headless monkey appears to be a Jashin cultist_ , Kurama said.

 _Jashin?_ Naruto asked.

 _A demon that kills its worshippers and binds their souls to their corpses_ , the Kyuubi responded. _Since they're not really alive, they can't be conventionally killed. The process invokes a kind of stasis on the bodies so they don't decay like a typical zombie would._

 _How do you get rid of them?_ Naruto asked.

 _The easiest way is to utterly destroy their bodies_ , Kurama said. _It shouldn't be too difficult for you, Overkill-chan._

Naruto groaned internally. _Not you too_. She could feel the Fox smirking at her.

The Kyuubi added, _Undead like the Jashin cultists always have a weakness. The Jashinists' weakness is that they must continually perform their ritual sacrifices. If they are unable to do so, the force maintaining their bodies dissipates and they perish. The timescale is approximately a sacrifice every two weeks, but they can build up "credit" by doing them more frequently or by sacrificing victims with strong active chakra. Unfortunately for your comrades, this is difficult to exploit in battle. I don't see you having a hard time with him, however._

 _The other Akatsuki appears to be using the Jiongu forbidden technique_ , Kurama continued, _but I don't know much about it other than that it was a secret technique that creates an artificial, non-inheritable ability that functions much like a bloodline ability and that it was used occasionally by high-level shinobi from Takigakure no Sato._

 _Earth Grudge Fear?_ Naruto mused. _What kind of technique name is that? Why was it forbidden?_

The Kyuubi sent feelings of amused contempt. _Who knows with you monkeys?_

The Taki missing nin grabbed the disembodied head as Shikamaru collapsed from exhaustion. The Akatsuki approached the headless body and threads detached from his arms to sew the head back on. Kotetsu and Izumo moved to attack, but the S-rank Akatsuki's arms extended unnaturally to grab them both by the throat.

Asuma moved to intervene, but the newly restored Yu missing nin took the opportunity to jump back onto his seal and stab himself in the gut with a short spear attached to a cord at the end of his scythe. Asuma collapsed.

Naruto scowled. The wound was fatal without the right type of intervention, but was intended to give the victim a relatively slow death over the course of about five to ten minutes. Luckily, they would be arriving in less than one.

The Taki missing nin threw the two chuunin to the ground and moved to finish them, when he stopped and pulled out a piece of metal with a seal etched on it. An image of a head appeared above the seal, but the image was too insubstantial for Naruto to read its lips from the wrong side.

The S-rank threat scowled and told his partner that they were leaving immediately, which caused the A-rank threat to immediately start complaining.

The confrontation was now within sight for normal eyes.

"Sasuke-kun, Hinata-chan, you take the Taki missing nin," Naruto told her teammates. "I'll have clones heal Asuma-san, debrief Shikamaru-kun and the other chuunin, and capture the guy hiding in the building. I'll take the missing nin from Yu with the scythe and then help you with the Taki one if you need it."

The two Akatsuki had already started to withdraw as Naruto's crow summon swooped low.

Sasuke jumped off with Hinata following him. "I didn't say you could leave!" he yelled.

Naruto formed three clones. All four of her leaped off of the summon. Her Animal Path Shadow Clone ran toward the building to find the B-rank threat. Her Human Path and Preta Path Shadow Clones dropped down next to the beleaguered Konoha shinobi.

"I didn't say you could die, Asuma-san," her Human Path clone said. She knelt down next to him and began to seal up his wound.

Her Asura Path clone began to ask Shikamaru and the other chuunin for details on their mission and how they came to fight the Akatsuki.

Naruto herself faced off against the scythe-wielding Akatsuki.

The scythe-wielder began laughing maniacally. "I didn't think you would be so stupid as to seek us out, Kyuubi."

"It's not like I have anything to fear from you, Aktatsuki." Naruto returned.

"Jashin has made me immortal," the Akatsuki boasted. "You can't stop me, Kyubbi. Jashin will reward me for killing you once we rip the bijuu out of you."

"How can a dead thing like you be considered immortal?" Naruto asked. "You're just a meat puppet animated by a third-rate demon."

"Blasphemy!" shouted the cultist as he charged her.

Naruto sent three locks of her hair at the Akatsuki. He dodged two locks and swung his scythe at the third. She sent chakra along her hair to reinforce it. The scythe rebounded from the hair. The cultist almost stopped in shock. Swearing foully, he collected himself barely in time to dodge another swipe from her hair. Getting more of the reanimated cultist's measure, she advanced on him, continuing to thrust at him with her hair. The once-man's style was almost exclusively based upon unrelenting attack and he was poorly suited towards dodging, but she left him no choice. She managed to grab his scythe, yanking him toward her. Foolishly, the Akatsuki did not let go. Coating a lock of her hair in Wind chakra, like she had seen Asuma do with his trench knives, she sliced through his arm at the elbow. The once-man staggered, cursing foully. Follow-up attacks with Wind-coated locks of hair removed his other arm and his head. The head continued to curse her.

"How are you talking without a body?" she asked him.

"The great god Jashin has blessed me to be immortal," he boasted. "Removing my head won't stop me!"

"No," Naruto corrected him. "I know why your mouth is moving. Where does the air come from to make the speech? Your lungs and diaphragm are over there!" She pointed to his body.

He stared at her blankly. Clearly he did not know.

Sighing, she took out three storage scrolls. She sealed his scythe into one of them, using her hair to position it. There was no way she wanted to touch him or his foul tools with her skin. She sealed his arms and body into a second scroll. The third scroll was a prisoner-transport scroll, just in case a standard storage scroll interfered with the chakra that animated him.

"What are you doing!?" he screeched. "Jashin curse you! You won't get away with this!"

She snorted. "I already have." She used a hair lock to bat his head onto the scroll and activated the storage seal. She used her chakra to mark the scrolls so that she could tell them apart and stowed them in her vest.

While she had been finishing up with the Yu missing nin, her clones had healed Asuma and gotten a report from Shikamaru and the other two chuunin. Evidently, the two Akatsuki had attacked the Fire Temple and killed one of the monks, a friend of Asuma's. Their team had tracked them here. The B-rank shinobi was evidently the proprietor of an illegal bounty station. The rest of the report matched what she had seen with her Byakugan. Her Animal Path clone had easily captured said proprietor. She returned with him bound in her hair. The original Naruto pulled out another prisoner scroll and sealed him into it.

The Taki missing nin had tried several times to rescue his comrade using ninjutsu fired from constructs made from his threads and masks. Hinata had engaged the man himself in taijutsu while Sasuke had destroyed one of his masks. Each of the masks seemed to specialize in one of the elemental chakra releases. Judging by the techniques the others were using, Sasuke had destroyed the Water mask. The missing nin was now trying to disengage, but Hinata was pressing him too fiercely for him to retreat. The remaining three masks were swooping at her back side, but Sasuke was countering their ninjutsu with his own.

Naruto was somewhat surprised that the missing nin was managing to survive against Hinata in close quarters, but he was selectively using an Earth Release technique to harden his skin and protect himself from her Gentle Fist techniques. On the other hand, Hinata was able to deflect his strikes with her chakra-coated palms. His attempts to snare or skewer her with his threads were likewise deflected or sliced off. Hinata's chakra control was good enough that she was able to make it finely-edged—almost as if she were using Wind chakra.

Sasuke shattered a second mask, the Fire one, that had gotten too close to him using Kakashi's Thousand Birds Technique. The threads supporting the construct fell apart once he pierced the heart behind the mask. She could see that the other two mask constructs also contained hearts which were the chakra nodes in each mask.

Leaving her Human Path clone to make sure the now-protesting Asuma stayed out of the fight and recovered fully, she approached Sasuke while sending her Preta and Animal Paths after the Wind-chakra mask.

"I'll take care of the remaining masks," Naruto told him. "Since we got the Yu missing nin, we don't need to take chances trying to capture this one. You get into position behind him. Once I take out his masks, use your Lightning Release technique on him. Aim for his heart. That's what seems to be keeping his constructs going. I bet it's the same for the man himself."

Sasuke grunted in acknowledgement.

Naruto's clones converged on the Wind mask in a pincer. The mask fell to a Rasengan at the end of her Preta Path's hair while trying to launch a ball of compressed Wind chakra at her Animal Path.

At that point, the Lighting mask tried to flee from her, only to receive the same Rasengan-tipped-hair-lock treatment to its back. Five seconds later the man himself fell to Sasuke's Thousand Birds through his chest while desperately trying to escape Hinata.

Naruto pulled out two more storage scrolls. She placed the shattered remains of the masks in one and the body of the Taki missing nin in the other. The threads that had animated the masks had all evaporated, having been made of chakra.

"Asuma's team needs to rest before we make the trip back to Konoha," she told her team, "but I'm uncomfortable remaining in this exact spot. We'll travel ten kilometers and then stop for the night. I'm afraid we'll need to carry Shikamaru-kun and Asuma-san."

"Why doesn't it surprise me that we need to carry the lazy bum?" grumbled Sasuke.

Naruto smirked. It _was_ in character.

"I'll send a slug summon to Baa-shishou to update her on what's happened," she said as they returned to the other Konoha shinobi.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** I was leaning toward letting Asuma die, but looking at descriptions of the fight and its aftermath in canon revealed that Asuma had time to smoke a cigarette after Kakuzu and Hidan left before finally dying. Any fight our heroes got to in time to stop the Akatsuki from leaving would give Tsunade-trained Naruto time to save him. There was no point in altering things to let him die other than to let him die. To me, it seems out of character for either Kakuzu or Hidan to just leave him (surely Pain wouldn't know if they took a half a minute to finish off the Konoha shinobi with only two chuunin left to fight them), but I guess Kishimoto wanted to give Asuma and Shikamaru a chance to have their moment.


End file.
